Project Umonya hosts successful Python course at Stellenbosch

Last weekend, 84 learners from roughly 55 schools came to Stellenbosch University to attend an introductory computer programming course. The children, from as far afield as Worcester, Hermanus, and Vredenburg, were taught the basics of the programming language Python in the course, and were provided with resources to continue learning Python when they returned home. To assist the children, plenty of tutors from Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town, and the software industry, were on hand to help them with questions.

This is just one course in a series of courses to be run nationwide as part of Project Umonya, initiated by the University of Cape Town’s Algorithm Circle after a number of pilot courses at Stellenbosch University and the University of Cape Town. The first course of Project Umonya, sponsored by S1, was hosted at UCT earlier this year, taking about 100 pupils. This weekend’s course, sponsored by Stellenbosch University’s MIH electronic media lab, was arranged by Stellenbosch University’s Computer Science division in conjunction with the UCT algorithm circle.

These courses are aimed at introducing programming to children at a younger age than is currently done at school, encouraging children making their Grade 10 subject choices to do Information Technology as a school subject, and providing children who are not doing Information Technology at school some of the skills learned there to give them confidence to study further in IT-related fields. To fulfill these aims, children from a variety of age groups are accepted for the courses – the past weekend’s course had learners from Grade 4 to Grade 12 attending.

Next year, Project Umonya will present four more courses across the country, sponsored by Google’s Computer Science for High Schools (CS4HS) program. Stellenbosch University and University of Cape Town should be hosting two of these courses. Interested candidates should apply at http://www.umonya.co.za/apply, and they will be informed when the dates for these courses have been finalized.

You can watch a short video clip of Project Umonya’s Stellenbosch course here. If you’re interested in volunteering to get involved with future courses, please contact admins@umonya.co.za.