Mandela Day is a time for South Africans to reflect on the sacrifices made by the late statesman and former President Nelson Mandela by taking 67 minutes out of their own time to assist those less fortunate.
Assisting others also extends to education, which is something that Madiba alway advocated for. This Mandela Day, Tongaat will see learners being taught about the scientific world of coding at a tournament which will be hosted at Trubel Primary School on Monday 18 July.
The tournament will see 33 teams of a group of five learners going head-to-head in a game on their phones, where levels will be passed if the coding is done correctly. Jean Greyling, from the Nelson Mandela University said that the bigger Tangible Africa project started in 2017 when a postgraduate student at the institution, Byron Batteson, developed the TANKS coding app.
She said: “The purpose of the app has been, from the start, to introduce learners to coding concepts without the use of computers. The desperate shortage of software developers combined with the challenge of thousands of schools that do not have computer laboratories, makes this project very relevant in South Africa.”
She said since 2017 the project, a collaboration between Nelson Mandela University and the Leva Foundation, has reached nearly 50 000 learners, with coding kits being distributed to over 500 schools.
“The project is now also reaching out to the rest of Africa, with an initial footprint in Tanzania, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The follow up application for TANKS is RANGERS, with an additional theme of Game Poaching in Africa. In March this year we had a RANGERS coding tournament in Gqeberha, with 300 learners from 40 schools participating. This is now followed up by the continental event on Monday, 18 July. We are looking forward to as many as possible cities, townships and rural villages hosting tournaments,” said Greyling.
Vanessa Premand, Departmental head at Fairbreeze Secondary School and co-coordinator of the event, said: “We’re excited to be introducing an unplugged coding game to schools in the Billy Nair Circuit. I am hoping that it inspires more pupils and teachers to participate and learn the game as it is a precursor to the robotics and coding being introduced at schools.”
