Coding and robotics curricula gets green light

THE Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, recently announced the introduction of coding and robotics classes for Grades R-9.

According to Motshekga, the curricula will provide learners with an understanding of coding and robotics and will develop their skills and competencies to prepare them for the 4th Industrial Revolution.

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“The curricula will ensure that our schooling system produces learners with the foundations for future work, and equip them with skills for the changing world, it will provide learners with an understanding of coding and robotics and will develop their skills and competencies to prepare them for the 4th Industrial Revolution and ensure that our schooling system produces learners with the foundations for future work, and equip them with skills for the changing world,” she said.

ICT educator at Winston Park Primary School, Jacqui Foche, has been teaching coding for seven years and also has a coding club open to all grades.

According to Foche, coding and programming at this level teaches the children grit. “The exercises require them to keep going back to fix things until it works, there is no competition to be the best yet it empowers the learner,” she said.

Hillcrest High School’s IT educator, Graham Pearl agrees that this curricula can only mean positive results for the learners. “At the moment, only the learners that choose IT as a subject are exposed to it,” he said.

Foche added that the programme encourages the learner to think logically and to never give up.

According to Motshekga, the coding curriculum will develop learners’ ability to; solve problems, think critically, and work collaboratively and creatively; function in a digital and information-driven world; apply digital and ICT skills; and transfer these skills to solve everyday problems.

Motshekga said that the University of South Africa (UNISA) has partnered with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) by making available their 24 ICT Laboratories throughout the country for the training of 72 000 educators in coding.

Coding is the process of assigning a code to something for classification or identification and, as a subject, will be piloted at 1 000 schools across five provinces starting in the 2020 school year.

The department has not, however, disclosed when robotics will be rolled out. Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, and application of robots.