KINGSTON, Jamaica — Approximately 5,000 students who registered for the National Coding in Schools Programme are expected to begin training this month.

Managing Director of software firm, Amber Group Limited, which is partnering with the Education and Youth Ministry to conduct the training, Michael McNaughton, said the students will be engaged in sessions two-to-three hours per week, over a two or three-month period.

A total of 400,000 students from grades one to 13 in public schools across Jamaica will benefit from the initiative, which was launched by Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, in November last year.

It follows a successful pilot, which was conducted virtually in 20 schools and involved the engagement of approximately 2,000 students in grades four and nine.

The objective is to equip students to compete in an increasingly technologically-driven world.

A total of 15,000 teachers will also be trained to deliver the curriculum to students up to grade nine, under a train-the-trainer programme.

The training for the first cohort of approximately 900 teachers has been completed.

“Because the students are engaged with their teachers on the ground, we thought it was critical that teachers are also exposed to the transformative aspects of coding,” McNaughton said.

He stated that the objective is to embark on a “significant knowledge transfer programme” to empower more teachers to deliver the subject on their own, “so that the knowledge base that is vested in them as practitioners who teach coding will be transferred to academics in our public schools”.

Chief Executive Officer of the Digicel Foundation, which is sponsoring the rollout of the coding in schools programme, Charmaine Daniels, stated that the teachers will be trained to facilitate basic coding lessons.

“When the students get to grade 10… then those classes will be delivered online by master programmers to teach the students who want it as a career,” she said.

After completing sixth form, the students will receive certification from the HEART/NSTA Trust, with the top performers to benefit from paid internships at Amber Group Limited and the Digicel Foundation.

All the students will have the option of furthering their studies at the Amber HEART Academy in Stony Hill.

The facility, located at the Stony Hill HEART Academy in St Andrew, was launched by the Prime Minister in January 2021, with a five-year goal of training 20,000 Jamaicans to become software producers.

Already, the institution is facilitating its second cohort of 50 students between the ages of 18 and 25, in the classroom.

“We’re looking forward to the third cohort for those candidates now being selected,” McNaughton said.

Meanwhile, with the lifting of the coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions, the partners are looking to accelerate the training.

McNaughton said that the Ministry of Education and Youth is doing “a good job” in terms of getting the teachers and students enrolled.

Grade-three teacher from the Tollgate Primary School in Clarendon, Rene Rose-Grandison, who is currently undergoing training at the HEART/NSTA Trust, said she is excited about including more technological content in her lesson plans.

She said that technology is “something that children love and gravitate towards”.

“I can just imagine what my sessions with my students will be like with all this new knowledge that I will get from the programme to include technology in the delivery of activities and so on,” she noted.

The Amber Innovations Group includes approximately 300 software engineers, who have provided solutions for companies in banking, insurance, security, tourism, health, energy, among other sectors.