Last day to enrol in free coding classes sponsored by Google

SINGAPORE — Parents benefitting from the Republic’s self-help groups or receiving financial aid from the Ministry of Education have one last day to sign their children up for the free coding classes sponsored by Google on Wednesday (Feb 15).

The tech giant’s local effort to train the next generation of technology innovators through a programme called Code in the Community will kick off next weekend, with up to 48 classes held across four community centres – Canberra Zone 7 RC, Henderson CC, Hong Kah North CC and the Singapore Indian Development Association (Sinda) headquarters – for children aged 8 to 15.

Classes will each be an hour long, and will take place across two 10-week-long terms. The first batch of students will complete their programme by Sept 3.

By the end of the 20-week programme, 8 to 11-year-olds will, among other tasks, be able to recreate a frogger-style arcade game and develop a search game to hunt for hidden treasure through an interactive software programme called Scratch.

Twelve to 15-year-olds will learn to code using Python, a widely used high-level programming language, giving them a taste of computer science and the computational thinking, sequential planning and logical reasoning skills required.

The classes will be conducted by 21C Girls — a registered charity that develops and delivers free coding classes to girls in Singapore – and Saturday Kids, a programming school for children here.

The curriculum also includes a visit to the Google Singapore office where children and their parents will meet Googlers, and learn about the work engineers there do every day.

“We hope this helps diverse young Singaporeans to develop computational/computer science skills and inspire them – and their parents – to pursue a future career in technology,” said a Google Singapore spokesperson.

The programme was announced in November last year during the launch of Google’s new Singapore office at Mapletree Business City in Pasir Panjang.

In three years, Google aims to benefit 3,000 children from needy homes through the programme.

Only low family income beneficiaries at Chinese Development Assistance Council, Eurasian Association, Sinda or Yayasan Mendaki, or of the MOE financial aid scheme, are eligible to be part of the programme.

Interested parties who are not beneficiaries will have to be means tested at the self-help groups if they would like to be part of the programme.

When asked about the number of sign-ups so far, the Google spokesperson did not disclose a number but said the “response has been encouraging” and the company “will continue to build awareness” for the programme hoping “more Singaporeans will benefit from the programme over the next few months”.

21C Girls founder Ayesha Khanna told TODAY that the coding classes could be “as important as doing math and reading” as machines are a part of everyday life as well.

Instead of getting intimidated by technology, the coding classes will children understand how machines work, and thus “help build creative confidence” to tackle 21st century problems, said Ms Khanna.