IIT Madras and Online Coding Platform Codingal Partner to Enhance Computer Science Learning in Indian Schools

IIT Madras and Online coding platform Codingal have announced a partnership to improve the quality of Computer Science education at school level. As part of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras’ ‘Upskill’ program under its annual technical festival, Shaastra 2021, Codingal trained school teachers in Scratch Programing Language.

Chetan Reddy, co-ordinator, Upskill Shaastra, IIT Madras said: “Shaastra 2021’s Upskill initiative is borne out of the necessity of transforming the Computer Science education at school level in India. We believe that Codingal’s expertise in imparting coding education is well-suited for training schoolteachers in Scratch programming and we are therefore glad to collaborate with them to run this training program. Together, we are aiming towards making Computer Science learning more fun for school going children.”

The Codingal and IIT Madras collaboration aims to equip school teachers with new teaching methodologies and tools that can be used in the classroom to enhance their students’ Computer Science learning. Codingal conducted a six-session course in Scratch Programming Language to train 100+ teachers from 78 schools. Once trained, these teachers will in turn be able to teach Scratch Programing to their students as part of their computer science education, said a statement from the company.

Vivek Prakash, cofounder of Codingal said, “From day one, our mission at Codingal has been to inspire school children to fall in love with coding. Learning to program in Scratch is ideal for school-going children as it allows them to build simple games and animations that give full expression to their creativity. We are therefore thrilled to support IIT-M’s Upskill initiative with a specially designed course on Scratch programming for school teachers, so they can in turn get their students to learn coding in a fun and enjoyable manner.”

Scratch language skills help school-going students to make their own interactive games and animations, which would allow them to nurture and demonstrate their creativity via online games development. This initiative is also being supported by National Skills Development Association (NSDC).

Venkatesh Sarvasiddhi, senior head, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) said: “With the world acknowledging and benefiting from the advancements in the field of IT and Computer Sciences, including basic understanding of coding language in the school curriculum is the need of the hour. Initiative like Shaastra Upskill equips teachers with new teaching methodologies, which in turn helps students understand coding at an early age.”