By Edward Vamboi
One of Sierra Leone’s leading mobile operators, Orange Sierra Leone in partnership with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education and ST Foundation on Monday 21st February 2020 unveiled the Super Coders Scratch Program at the Albert Academy on Berry Street in Freetown.
In his address, Regional Business Manager ,Orange SL, Achmed L Mansaray, who spoke on behalf of the Chief Executive Officer disclosed that the company, being a multi service provider and a responsible corporate citizen, places emphasis on corporate social investment, adding that in the last three years, Orange has invested about $ 400,000 mainly in the areas of women empowerment, health, education and the environment further maintaining that the Company remains the first operator in Sierra Leone to contribute to the Government’s Free Quality Education (FQE) Agenda by pledging the sum of $1.5m in material assistance over a period of five years.
“Orange in partnership with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE), designed five projects. One of such projects is the Super Coders Scratch Program in which Orange in partnership with ST Foundation intends to introduce ICT training on basic coding for children in 100 Secondary Schools with existing ICT labs over a period of five years,” he disclosed.
He said that the implementation will be done in two phases;
- First batch of 10 schools has commenced on Wednesday 19 February 2020 for the next ten days in various Government-assisted schools with ICT labs across the country.
- Second phase of 15 schools will be rolled out in May 2020.
He noted that the Super Coders Scratch Project is an introductory ICT training program for children between ages 9 to 16 years pointing out that Scratch is a computer programming language. She said in Scratch, programs are made by joining together colored blocks using the Mouse. These groups of blocks (called script) tell characters on the Screen (called Sprites) what to do. Scratch is free, safe and fun to experiment with.
He stated that with Scratch, children can make their own interactive Stories, Animations, Games, Music, and Art further revealing how Scratch has large collections or libraries of cool graphics and fun sounds to play around with which enable children to solve real life social issues through coding and animation.
Achmed maintained that coding once introduced in related schools by Orange, will be included in their ICT curriculum and will be taught by the ICT tutors in each school. He reiterated how many would recall that Orange commenced the execution of its FQE project in October 2019, where the company distributed 2,000 hygiene packs to 20 schools in the Western Urban and Rural areas, conducted awareness and sensitization on menstrual hygiene and sexual reproductive health, adding that this year, Orange-SL will roll out all five projects before the end of 2020.
“As a global telecoms player operating in about 22 countries in Africa and the Middle East, Orange aims at being the leading partner in the digital transformation of all our countries of presence. In achieving this ambition, Orange has included education as one of its key pillars under its CSR policy,” he underscored.
Director of ST Foundation, Mohamed Dumbuya, delivering his statement said that the ST Foundation was established in 2009, and that the Foundation is a charity.
He admonished pupils to make good use of the given responsibility which has been provided to them and that they will continue to support them in diverse ways in subsequent programs.
He disclosed that they are very much impressed with the great improvement by pupils of the Blind School as the Foundation distributed computers to the school and said they are proud that these pupils are using computers.
He also buttressed and reiterated that the Super Coders Project is an introductory ICT training program for children between ages 9 to 16 years adding that the union, marriage or partnership they are enjoying was created by UNICEF-Sierra Leone by introducing the two parties and brought them together.
He said STF/BDD-SL has been working in providing ICT education for schools and higher learning institutions in Sierra Leone for the past 10 years and within those periods of operation over 145,000 Sierra Leoneans have benefited.
Acting Principal of the Albert Academy Senior Secondary School, Junisa Vandi expressed appreciation to Orange-SL and ST Foundation for the formal launch of the super coders scratch project which is being implemented in close partnership with Orange Sierra Leone, ST Foundation and the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education.
He said that orange being the first telecoms company to pledge its support to the Free Quality Education that was implemented by His Excellence, the President, saying that they are over whelmed that they are still making brilliant strides to make the vision of the president be actualized, leading the progress of the future of this country.
He acknowledges the project that was designed to increase the knowledge base of their pupils in computer literacy, adding that the venture was in line with the schools aim of equipping their pupils with skills and academic successes required to compete with other students both nationally and intentionally in the job market, and that was why they “Rather to be than to seem”.
“As orange has recognized the importance of education for sustainability development and subsequently included it as one of their key pillars under corporate social responsibility investment, he humbly ask on behalf of the school administration to come in strongly for the pavement of the school grounds so that the computers provided will be dust free”, he lamented.
