Over 337 schools across the six Educational Districts in Lagos are all but set to slug it out in a four-day Code Week Competition, Special Adviser to the Governor, Mr. Obafela Bank-Olemoh said on Thursday.
Bank-Olemoh in a statement said that participating schools, including Government and private schools across the State, through the competition, being put together by the State Ministry of Education through the CodeLagos initiative, will be exposed to the world of computer programming as well as foster the rapid growth and development of coding skills among students.
He said the four-day competition which will kick off on Monday, June 25, was designed to further encourage the use of a wider range of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills within the school curriculum and raise ICT standards among Lagos state schools.
According to him, “CodeLagos is a response to the mandate of His Excellency, Governor Akinwumi Ambode to prepare Lagos residents for the technology driven future. Our intention through this competition is to foster problem solving and algorithmic thinking abilities among these students by simulating real-case problem solving scenarios. By so doing, we will position our students for the 21st century workforce. We will also identify talented young programmers and help nurture their skills and expertise.”
He said the Lagos Code Week would commence with a preliminary competition among CodeLagos schools in each of the six Educational Districts in the State.
He added that each participating school whether Government or private-owned would be represented by a team of up to three contestants who would be required to respond to a coding-related design challenge.
Besides, over 1340 Lagos residents are currently being trained in the third session of CodeLagos out-of-School programme holding in 12 centres across the State. Centres are located in Ikeja, Ipaja, Isolo, Yaba, Ilupeju, Meiran, Onikan, Surulere, Fadeyi, and Igbogbo Ikorodu.
“Before the end of 2018, we would have set up 1500 In-School coding centres and 50 Out-of-School centres across Lagos State and by our projections, over 150,000 Lagos residents would have been trained by December 2018,” Bank-Olemoh.