Telangana Information Technology Association to teach coding in TS govt schools

Gachibowli: Riding on the success of Digithon Yatra, the industry body Telangana Information Technology Association (TITA) will shortly launch a pilot that will train Government school students in coding and submit its report by January end.

This pilot project is in line with suggestions made by IT Minister KT Rama Rao on the need to expose students to new skills, according to TITA Global President Sundeep Kumar Makthala. Elaborating on this, Makthala said that the State government was thinking of offering coding skills at the school level to inculcate problem-solving skills among students. This will also orient them to entrepreneurial possibilities.

The decision to introduce coding skills at the school level is a joint initiative of the Departments of Education and ITE&C. This will boost the confidence of students of being in sync with the new technologies. TITA will partner with State Government in this initiative, he said.

Makthala and two other members- Bharat Pattineni and Munipalli Naresh have toured select schools on Saturday to assess the ground situation including basic facilities, infrastructure and to gauge students' inclination to learn new skills. The team interacted with school headmasters, innovation club members and other officials for their suggestions on introducing coding in schools.

TITA had earlier conducted Digithon Yatra in Atmakur, Amarachinta, Madhanapur and Kothakota mandals. It now plans to introduce Coding in Schools program in the same mandals to build upon its previous experience. It already has set up Innovation Clubs comprising one student each from Class VIII & IX and one teacher from the school. They have been also taken on an industry tour to Hyderabad to make them aware of the industry dynamics.

As part of the pilot of coding in schools, TITA will cover 33 schools in these four mandals. Three members belonging to the Innovation Club from each school will be trained in coding. Since they have already completed entry level training, they will now be trained in Scratch programming, HTML and Python over five days. The report will be ready by January end, Makthala added. Intellectuals, Industry, academia and NRI community can give suggestions on the programme over phone at 8123123434 or through email on telanganait@gmail.com