The Youth Foundation will promote in the 49 groups of priority intervention schools in the Northern region a digital program to combat “the lack of interest of students in the area of technologies and sciences,” said the president of the institution, was announced today.
“This program came with the identification of a problem, but also the urgency that exists in Portugal to direct the education of children and young people in the area of technology and applied sciences,” explained the president of the Foundation of Youth Francisco Maria Balsemão.
The program, called “MAKE CODE: YOUR FUTURE PROGRAM”, will cover, in the next three school years, about 8,000 students, who attend the 1st, 2nd and 3rd cycles of schooling, and more than 500 TEIP (Priority Intervention Educational Territories) teachers from the Northern region.
According to the president of the Youth Foundation, this program, based mainly on programming and computer science, will “make it easier to understand these subjects” by allowing students to “use and apply these methods to the subjects they study, Half or even Geography. ”
“The essence of the program is to make programming interesting and desirable because even if the student does not want to follow advanced professional computing, he will have some notion of what programming means,” he said.
Francisco Maria Balsemão believes that, although the “classroom context has evolved a lot”, it is still necessary to make “the comprehension of these areas accessible” and to create in children and youngsters “the bug by programming”.
“These are, and will continue to be, highly sought after areas at the national and international levels.” Today, the vast majority of students in the areas of computer science and technology are soon absorbed into the labour market. certainly, continue to increase in the future, “he added.
The Youth Foundation will admit, until the end of the month, registrations for the implementation of the project in schools, and the school of Cerco and the secondary school Rodrigues de Freitas, in Oporto, will be the first to receive the roadshow. presentation of the project and training for teachers and students.
“MAKE CODE: YOUR FUTURE PROGRAM”, an initiative promoted by the Youth Foundation and co-financed by the Human Capital Operational Program, Portugal 2020 and the European Union, also counts on the partnership of Microsoft.
