No less than 635 teachers in Enugu have commenced training on software coding course in Africa Code Week train-the-trainer programme.
The digital literacy initative is geared towards sparking the interest of children, teenagers and young adults in software coding, which is a new global language that fuels innovation and development.
The teachers were drawn from primary, secondary, vocational and technical schools, including the Enugu Small and Medium Enterprises, SME centres.
Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu state described Enugu youths as the engine of economic growth, adding that digital literacy would empower the youths to contribute to the sustainable economic growth in the state.
Ugwuanyi, represented by Deputy Governor Cecilia Ezilo said that human capital development was as important to the state as infrastructural development. “Digital literacy is one of our key strategies for optimizing this vision,” the Governor said.
Senior Special Assistant to the Governor, Dr. Kingsley Udeh noted that the after training the teachers, they will in turn train and inspire their pupils and students to software coding.
SAP technical Partner for the training, Mr. Olajide Ajayi said the Africa Code Week is instilling digital literacy and coding skills in the young generation, working closely with private, public and non-profit partners to drive sustainable learning impact across Africa.
“Spearheaded by SAP in 2015 as part of its social investments to drive sustainable growth in Africa, Africa Code Week is a digital skills development initiative that has benefited 1.8 million young Africans so far.
“Strong partnerships with the public, private and non-profit sectors are the driving force behind the initiative’s ambitious goals and ability to build community capacity in ICT education across an entire continent,” Ajayi said.
Africa Code Week is actively supported by key partners as UNESCO YouthMobile, Google and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), 15 African governments, over 150 partners and 100 ambassadors across the continent.
