You can now send your 4-year-old to a coding holiday camp in South Africa
As the South African government and private school groups march towards a tech and development-focused curricula, more opportunities are presenting themselves for learners to build a solid foundation in ‘future’ skills including robotics and coding.
Education and school support group, Think Ahead, is opening up holiday camps for school kids to help them develop skills in robots, coding and digital media.
The camps are for all learners, from grade R (aged 4 turning 5) to grade 9 (aged 14 turning and 15), and typically last between one to three days.
The courses place focus on introducing coding and robotics concepts to children from young age, to better prepare them for a 21st-century world where the fourth industrial revolution – bringing automation and technology to the fore – is likely to impact many jobs.
The coding courses introduce the basics through Apple’s coding language, Swift, and covers topics like sequencing, debugging and loops.
The robotics courses use the Sphero robot to teach kids how to programme the robot through their code.
Think Ahead also offers a primer on digital content creation through YouTube, which includes how to use such media channels responsibly.
The camps are being held in Sandton during April, following similar camps being held in KwaZulu Natal in March. Prices range from R550 per day to R1,499 for all three days, where applicable.
New subjects, new schools
South Africa’s education system is migrating towards equipping children with the skills they will need for the ‘fourth industrial revolution’.
The Department of Basic Education has announced plans to introduce coding and robotics as subjects into the South African school curriculum, which will help learners to build a future in STEM fields.
Coding will help in developing critical thinking, problem solving and finding creative ways to apply digital and ICT skills, the department said.
Robotics, meanwhile, will have a strong foundation in engineering and will enable learners to build and operate robots through programming code.
The department is also pushing the use of technology in the classroom, with a government plan to provide every school child in South Africa with digital workbooks and textbooks on a tablet device from 2020 onwards.
Private schools are also making significant strides in this area, with listed school group, Curro, opening its first ‘tech’ school in Cape Town at the start of 2019.
The school, Curro Foreshore, provides a progressive curriculum focused on Mathematics, Science, Robotics and Coding. Learning materials are also predominantly digital, with each learner receiving a laptop preloaded with the required software and textbooks.
School days at the Curro Foreshore are longer, operating within business hours, but classes and teaching styles are more flexible, where learners can work and study at their own pace.
According to Curro, the thinking behind the school, as well as its deviation from typical school operations, comes from asking what skills learners will need for the 2030 workplace.
Read: South African schools will soon get these 3 new subjects
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