Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode has approved the implementation of the second phase of the CodeLagos Project, which will be launched in September 2017.

The approval is coming on the heels of the successful implementation of the pilot phase of the project which has trained 5,464 students of primary and secondary schools across the State.

Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Mr. Obafela Bank-Olemoh, in a statement on Sunday, said that 65 schools including government and private schools took part in the pilot phase.

He said: “The training has delivered to the students critical life skills including basic computing, computational thinking and use of basic computer programming tools like scratch and python over a period of eight weeks and the feedbacks have been inspiring.

“Of the 65 schools in the pilot, 23 are government schools of which seven of them are girls’ only schools while two others are boys only.”

He also disclosed that the experience and knowledge garnered from the pilot phase has helped the Ministry to assess and fine-tune the framework and implementation model of the project in view of future roll out.

“This pilot phase has helped us test our assumptions and implementation plan, we have observed what worked and what didn’t and would put them into consideration for future roll out beginning with the next batch slated for September, 2017,” the Special Adviser said.

Meanwhile, the government has concluded plans to roll out the project in all the state-owned public libraries to ensure access to CodeLagos classes for more Lagos residents, especially those out of the conventional schools system.

Bank-Olemoh said that more Lagosians would have the opportunity to take part in the training free-of-charge at any of the public libraries.

“We currently have 12 Libraries and we are setting up Coding Centres in each of the libraries for Lagosians to partake of the programme. We will also have coding centres in our tertiary institutions,” he said.

CodeLagos, an initiative of the Lagos State Ministry of Education, which aims to teach one million Lagosians to code by 2019, was unveiled to the public in November 2016.

According to Bank-Olemoh, “CodeLagos will ensure that the Lagos economy has the people that will drive its development for the next 50 years, positioning the state as the technology frontier in Africa.

He enjoined Lagosians to visitwww.codelagos.org as the registration portal would be open for the public to sign up for free on Monday August 21.

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