CodeLagos: Govt Holds Stakeholders’ Forum for Old Students

Peace Obi

As part of its effort to ensure a smooth take off of the CodeLagos initiative in April, the Lagos State Government has organised a stakeholders’ forum for school alumni in the state.

Speaking at the event recently, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Mr. Obafela Bank-Olemoh, said the initiative is aimed at teaching a million Lagosians how to code within three years.

He said it is geared towards equipping the youths with globally competitive skills, adding that the Akinwunmi Ambode administration believes that the project is critical to the continuing prosperity of the state. While describing CodeLagos as one of the steps towards achieving the various development plans of the state such as the Smart City initiative, Resilient City project, among others, Bank-Olemoh said the state is working hard to ensure that necessary facilities are put in place and to embrace the needed synergy with the private sector for a successful implementation. Explaining the role of old students’ associations in the project, he said the state considers them as major stakeholders in their various alma mater. “This partnership is aimed at achieving the CodeLagos initiative target of reaching 500,000 students through the school system; 100,000 through public libraries, public spaces and ICT spaces; while 400,000 through our online platforms. It is in the first phase that we need your support.

“What we intend to do is to set up coding centres all across Lagos both in public and private schools. For us as a government, we can’t do it all alone that is why we are reaching out to old student associations who are major stakeholders in their schools to partner with us by setting up coding centres in their schools.”

Speaking on the modalities for setting up a centre, the SA said a minimum of two facilitators, 10 computers, a projector, solar panel or generator, internet facility is needed for a standard coding centre. “You will need to provide allowance for your facilitators, send your facilitators to us and we will train them at no cost to your association. You can register your facilitators on Codelagos.org. We have set up the coding frames to ensure uniformity in quality.”

He said the state will on quarterly basis, conduct examination to ascertain the learning outcome of the students and reward the overall best with an international scholarship where they can go and brush up their skills in countries like Finland, UK, among others.

Speaking to some journalists on the preparedness of the office of education quality assurance to ensure that standard is maintained in all coding centres, the Director General, Mrs. Ronke Soyombo said some officers will be trained along with facilitators.

Though the officers won’t be teaching coding, she said the training will enable them do an effective monitoring of the initiative. “We are going to be monitoring to see that quality coding is done in Lagos. Some of our officers are going to be trained and be part of this.

“The fact that we are monitoring CodeLagos doesn’t mean that we are not going to monitor teaching and learning in public and private schools. So, we need to marry the three together. We have got a good itinerary for the three events.”