Digital Youth Engagement Programme (DYEP) Secondary
Training of Secondary Students (Grade 9) on Coding
The National Computer Board has been mandated to extend the Digital Youth Engagement Programme to Secondary Students following the Budget Speech 2018-2019. Thus, its implementation by the NCB started in 2019 whereby introductory courses on Coding are imparted to lower secondary school students. With the development in technology over the years, the ability to code has become increasingly imperative for our students since the benefits of coding go well beyond the everyday use of a computing device.
The NCB is working jointly with the Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education, Science and Technology in a bid to initiate Grade 9 Secondary Students on acquiring the required coding skills based on a well-structured programme.
The NCB runs the 18-hour special training sessions during the school vacations in the Computer Labs of State and Private Secondary Colleges. The programme aims at training some 2,500 secondary students since the last two financial years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 respectively. Secondary School Educators and Lab Auxiliaries of respective colleges are taken on board for the effective delivery of the Coding programme.
The overall objectives of the programme are to inspire the interests of our young learners for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects & to contribute towards increasing the number of students opting for Science and Computer subjects at both secondary and tertiary levels.
The Programme
Educational Benefits - Coding at an early age helps students to be more articulate, creative and think logically by breaking down what is happening and starting to predict what’s going to occur.
Computational Thinking - The coding training helps to develop the computational thinking ability of children; their ability to communicate one’s thoughts in a structured and logical manner. Besides, the development of computational thinking involves considering a problem and breaking it down into single-action steps.
Creativity / Thinking Fluidity - Children tend to have creative and fluid minds that allow them to think better in a more “out- of- the- box” way. The nearly endless ways of coding and solving problems can inspire kids to grow. Coding can be considered as a type of storytelling whereby there is a logical beginning, progression, and ending to the story (‘program’). These skills can set children for success in written and oral communications. It is also revealed that studying algorithms can better help their understanding of sentence structure.
A number of coding skills are imparted to students during the 18-Hr training. The course includes three core modules namely:
- Introduction to Scratch comprising of the scratch interface, creation of animations, sequencing, drawing basic shapes & patterns, loops and designing a simple game.
- Overview of HTML&CSS comprising of designing a static web page
- Introduction to BBC Micro Bits including practical applications of coding, working with algorithms, programming of Micro Bit LEDs, counters & electronic dice.
Job Opportunities:
The current generation of children will require them to be fully technology literate in order to be competitive in the future job markets. It is expected that this Coding Initiative for lower secondary students will, in the long run, contribute towards creating an adequate and diversified talent pool to fill the increasing number of technology jobs that shall be available in the future and hence drive the growth of the promising ICT Sector.
A certificate of participation is given to each student at the end of the training.
As at date
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secondary students have benefitted from this programme:
- 2019-2020: 1,943 students
- 2018-2019: 1,385 students