Access Bank, Amalitech join forces to promote STEM education
Access Bank Ghana has taken a significant step in fostering STEM education in Ghana, through its partnership with Amalitech for a Coding for Kids (C4K) Project.
The C4K project will provide coding education to 750 children aged between six and sixteen years, in ten schools in the Western Region of Ghana.
It seeks to equip children in building basic applications which will enhance their creativity and innovation skills as well as their computational thinking and problem-solving skills.
Speaking on the partnership, Managing Director of Access Bank Ghana, Olumide Olatunji said the African continent had great talents and natural resources to help it compete globally therefore interventions targeted at developing the critical thinking abilities of children is welcoming and must be pursued.
“With a good foundation in STEM education, in a right political climate, we can position the youth through education to work in Africa and reduce the brain drain we are experiencing,’ he said.
He further explained that promoting STEM education aligned with Access Bank’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals.
“Access Bank believes that investing in STEM education is a crucial step towards the promotion of quality education. The C4K project thus aligns with the Bank’s commitment to quality education”, he said.
Director for Operations at Amalitech, Matthew Darkwa commended Access Bank Ghana for the partnership.
He said the project was the biggest among projects Amalitech was implementing in Ghana and promised an exciting era for the technology space in Ghana.
“If Ghana will grow digitally as a country, we must start with the children. C4K helps children to write codes such as HTML to give them a good understanding of the digital market at an early age. We are excited about this opportunity which will be impacting so many lives. This is the biggest child coding project we are undertaking in Ghana, and we are excited about the prospects,” Mr Darkwa noted.
The project’s first phase has already commenced, focusing on identification of the ten participating schools, recruitment, training of facilitators and a three-day teen code bootcamp on HTML & CSS programming for a section of the students.
BY TOMES REPORTER