03 Aug 2018

Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Mr Thapelo Olopeng has commended Ngwana Enterprise for the initiative to empower school children and youth in Tonota with coding skills.

Speaking during the closing ceremony of Africa code week at Shashe River School, Minister Olopeng, who is also area Member of Parliament, said he appreciated the initiative by SAP in collaboration with Ngwana Enterprise, which has afforded some students and young people an opportunity to be trained in coding skills using a computer programme called Scratch. 

Commemorated under the theme, ‘coding is a new language every child deserves to be fluent’, young people of Tonota spent a day being drilled on using Scratch and were awarded participation certificates upon completion. 

Mr Olopeng said the initiative was in support of what the government had been rooting for in terms of advancing ICT in the country, saying that the initiative had come at a time when government was pre-occupied with improving the ICT infrastructure.

He said computer programmes like Scratch would play an important role in improving education in the country.

Furthermore, he said improving ICT provided an opportunity for creating jobs, especially with concerns around unemployment in the country.

Mr Olopeng stated that other countries had already made efforts and were doing great for themselves.

He gave an example of South Africa, where inventions like Uber taxi services had improved people’s lives, saying such opportunities should also be extended to places like Tonota.

He said the initiative by Ngwana Enterprise could have not come at a better time and also pledged his commitment to help in extending coding training to other people, especially at the library by bringing facilitators to train people.  

Mr Olopeng expressed his delight with regard to the prospects that are enabled by coding, and said if everyone embraced the programme, a lot of things could be changed. 

Ngwana Enterprise CEO, Mr Mooketsi Tekere told BOPA that the initiative sought to instil digital literacy across different communities in Botswana.

He said the idea was to teach children and youth what he described as coding proficiency. 

Mr Tekere explained that coding enabled a child to learn using a 21^st century method, adding that a child could be taught in a game -based format.

He said since government had adopted school connectivity through the new strategies under the basic education ministry and E-government, the coding training came as an important drive towards achieving such.

He said the training enabled young people to acquire a simple skill of coding, which puts them in a position to be able to develop their own websites, thus affording them a chance to venture into E-commerce which fell under digital trade.

He stated that digital trading exposed them to a lot of opportunities, one being able to sell their products to potential clients all over the world with just a click from their computers.

Mr Tekere also explained that venturing into digital business world had the potential to help solve the labour mismatch in the country, adding that since many graduates were sitting at home without jobs, the initiative was an opportunity for them to come together with their different expertise and do something to empower themselves.

Furthermore, he explained that coding was the future of doing technology based business and learning in schools. ENDS