Coding Education for Ghana Program - The Caravan reaches females and other communities.

Coding Education for Ghana Program - The Caravan reaches females and other communities.
The Institute of ICT Professionals Ghana (IIPGH) together with its partner, Code for Afrika, from Leipzig, Germany, embarked on Coding Education for Ghana program. The program aims to strengthen computer science education in Ghana through coding. This initiative is aimed at enhancing computational thinking skills in children since these skills are considered valuable in the 21st century. Skills such as creativity and innovation skills, digital fluency and literacy skills, collaboration and communication skills, exploration and problem-solving skills, critical thinking and analysis skills, are considered essential for all learners irrespective of their fields of interest. The program, developed and tested, offer a simple and motivating introduction to computer programming for children (from 8 years) - conveys basic programming concepts, introduce computational thinking, and show the creative potential of programming.

Objective
The main objective of the program is to build teachers’ and trainers’ capacity to support Ghana’s coding education, and to impart that knowledge, unearthing creativity in children by learning to code. Also, to improve local partners´ capacity of implementing hands-on coding program, to promote and strengthen coding education in Ghana. Thus, we seek to develop a modular framework to integrate art and visual programming into the Ghanaian educational context, to ignite or enhance the development of digital skills. This can be achieved by fostering closer collaboration among education providers, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders in the field of ICT in Ghana, with private sector organizations, such as IIPGH.

Why Learn about Coding
In our digitized world coding is becoming an integral part of literacy. To understand and change our digital world, which is increasingly determined by algorithms, one needs at least basic programming skills. Learning to program is no longer just for computer specialists and software developers. In many countries, programming is becoming a mandatory part of school education. In more professions, programming skills are becoming a prerequisite. This program is therefore targeting pupils, teachers/trainers, schools/communities, educators, and policymakers.

Structure and Implementation
The coding education program shall have a series of workshops for teachers/tutors, who will then impart knowledge from the training and teaching methods to children/pupils. Such training for children shall take the form of workshops in interested or selected schools, educational centers, and communities. The training partner (IIPGH) shall also use its physical and online structures to promote this program. With available teaching materials and established approaches, tutors know the pedagogical handouts from software such as Code it! and can use them to convey/design their lessons with different methods - to teach children and beginners the basic concepts of programming simply and practically.

Sustainability of the Program
The program shall ensure maximum training and capacity building of the partner organizations. The trainers shall be supported to conduct further training workshops in Ghana independently. For this purpose, members of the partner organizations will be involved in the preparation and implementation of the training workshops. The aim is for the teachers to use the knowledge and tools they have acquired in their lessons/courses even after the program has ended. IIPGH, as a connector of the ICT ecosystem, shall also work to get other organizations to partner to realize this vision. More partners and sponsors are to be won for the program for the financing of further training and education.