Ambode approves Phase 2 of CodeLagos

LAGOS State governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, said it has approved the implementation of the second phase of the CodeLagos Project, which will be launched in September 2017, following the successful implementation of the pilot phase of the project which has trained 5,464 students of primary and secondary schools across the state.

CodeLagos, an initiative of the Lagos State Ministry of Education, which aims to teach one million Lagosians to code by 2019, was unveiled to the public in November 2016.

Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Mr Obafela Bank-Olemoh, said this in a statement on Sunday, disclosing that 65 schools, including government and private schools took part in the pilot phase.

“The training has delivered to the students critical life skills including basic computing, computational thinking and use of basic computer programming tools like Scratch and python over a period of eight weeks and the feedbacks have been inspiring.

“Of the 65 schools in the pilot, 23 are government schools of which seven of them are girls’ only schools while two others are boys only,” Bank-Olemoh said.

The special adviser also disclosed that the experience and knowledge garnered from the pilot phase had helped the ministry to assess and fine-tune the framework and implementation model of the project in view of future roll out.

According to Bank-Olemoh, the pilot phase has helped the state government to test its assumptions and implementation plan, saying the result had helped it observed what worked and what didn’t, pointing out that government would put such into consideration for future roll out beginning with the next batch slated for September, 2017.

Meanwhile, the state government said it has concluded plans to roll out the project in all the state-owned public libraries to ensure access to CodeLagos classes for more Lagosians especially those out of the conventional schools system.

Bank- Olemoh said the plans would enable more Lagosians have the opportunity to take part in the training free-of-charge at any of the public libraries.

“We currently have 12 Libraries and we are setting up Coding Centres in each of the libraries for Lagosians to partake of the programme. We will also have coding centres in our tertiary institutions,” he said.