programming the way forward: coding clubs plug township youth into future - electronic boards for classrooms

It's Wednesday at 14: 00.
A densely populated Ivory Park town on the outskirts of Midland-about 60 yearsyear-
Duel at the local coding club.
The six primary school teams compete with each other with basic coding modules, inventor kits, laptops and endless imagination.
Kids at the coding club use electronic boards to make temporary circuits and prototypes to design solutions to problems they find in the community.
"We are building an incubator machine to help premature and sick children," Sifiso Ngobeni, a student at the mitataka Primary School outside Johannesburg, told AFP.
Competitors from nearby Sedi
Raqqa Primary School is fighting the scourge of missing children.
"In the news, we always hear about the children missing, so we are making a child tracking device that can be put into the children's clothes and toys," said a group of people who chattered.
The education system, because for great concerts, coding is an instruction that a robot or computer program reads and then executes.
At the coding club, students learn to design code to implement it.
While access to education has increased in South Africa, it is often not possible for the education system to reach that level.
"The fact that we still have 80% of our teachers using chalk and blackboards in this era has attracted great attention," said education activist Hendrick Makaneta . ".
"The class in 2018 still looks exactly the same as the class in 1918, which is incorrect.
"Trends in research, including international research in mathematics and science (TIMSS)
, Reveals that South Africa's public education system is at the bottom compared to the rest of the world, especially in mathematics and science.
These topics are key skill areas and coding clubs have quickly created a niche for themselves.
From fun games to jobs?
In September, the Ministry of Education said it would support the coding club. These clubs have proved popular elsewhere in Africa, including Kenya and Botswana.
In South Africa, these clubs are mainly hosted free of charge by non-governmental organizations such as ort sa, CodeJIKA and what we think is Code.
"The will is there and our school is open to it, some of which already have a will (
Basic Coding Training
"As part of the formal curriculum of the technical school," said Elijah Mhlanga, spokesman for the Ministry of Education . ".
"The students will come into contact with it so that when they grow up, they will really realize what it requires of them.
"In a country where more than 50% of young people are unemployed, coding clubs also increase the chances of finding a job.
"The purpose of the club is to teach learners the basics of coding and programming.
We use blocks for basic coding, and when they get into high school, we introduce them to more complex programs, "Chamu Mawire, the coding host for ort sa, told AFP.
But in order for young people to want to learn, coding must be relevant to everyday life, he said.
"We want them to find out the problems in their area or school, and then they set up the project to try to solve them in a day --to-
"One Day's life," he said.
While most Ivory Park students are familiar with smartphones, smart TVs and the Internet, coding and understanding algorithms is another challenge.
A McKinsey 2018 report highlights that 45% of current tasks can be automated through existing technologies.
From Science to engineering, from financial services to law or art, countless aspects of life will depend on coding.
For Mawire, he envisioned his students entering the technical field of software development, software maintenance, or repair future gadgets and robots.
This may vary for girls who are particularly vulnerable to exclusion, illiteracy and subsequent dependence on men.
"Once you have a confident child, especially a girl, the child can gain a foothold," he said . ".
"Children need to move forward with the development of education and programming is the way forward.
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