Computer Science Education in schools in Africa

I’m delighted to share details of a new project I’m involved in. Colleagues from Botswana, Nigeria and Kenya are working together to investigate primay and secondary computing education provision in their countries, and potentially other countries across Africa. This month we launched a survey for teachers of computer studies in Africa to find out what is being taught in schools, what may be taught outside school, and how computer studies teachers feel about their own teaching. From this survey we will be able to compare the provision in parts of Africa with other countries around the world. We will also be able to identify both strengths and gaps in computing education in different African countries.

I’m delighted to be working with Ethel Tshukudu, Oluwatoyin Adelakun, Brenda Nyaringita, and Ziling Zhong on this project. Ethel is a lecturer in Computing Education in the Univesity of Botswana and also a PhD student in the University of Glasgow. Toyin is a Lecturer in Computer Science at Bingham University in Karu, Nigeria and studying towards a PhD in computing education. Brenda is a Software Engineer at Africa’s Talking and enjoys volunteering as an educator with organizations in Kenya. She has also founded ZeroToCode Africa project to address EdTech content localization as well as research on EdTech in the African education systems. Ziling is a high school student living in Uganda, who has set up Ethonoma, a start-up dedicated to including African representation and indigenous knowledge in computer science education.

If you are in Africa, working in computing education, and would like to get involved please contact us on Twitter at @AfricaCSE. Meanwhile do share our survey with your networks.