The department of basic education has developed the grade R-3 coding and robotic curriculum and the development of the grade 4-7 curriculum is at an advanced stage.
This was announced by minister of basic education Angie Motshekga on the second day of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union's 9th national congress held at Nasrec, south of Johannesburg.
“We will be trialling this curriculum in grade 3-7 starting from January next year. Our teachers are being trained in computer skills including new teaching areas such as robotics and coding amongst others,” Motshekga said.
Motshekga said the sector was ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. She said she was also happy to announce that in recent years there were fewer children who are entering school late.
“Statistics show that the percentage of seven year olds surveyed in the general household survey who have already completed grade 1 has increased from about 35% in 2002 to about 64% in 2017.
"The star performer that is likely to improve educational outcomes is that by 2018 we had over 2.4-million [children] accessing early childhood education in our country."
Primary school pupils to learn coding and robotics next year
The department of basic education has developed the grade R-3 coding and robotic curriculum and the development of the grade 4-7 curriculum is at an advanced stage.
This was announced by minister of basic education Angie Motshekga on the second day of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union's 9th national congress held at Nasrec, south of Johannesburg.
“We will be trialling this curriculum in grade 3-7 starting from January next year. Our teachers are being trained in computer skills including new teaching areas such as robotics and coding amongst others,” Motshekga said.
Motshekga said the sector was ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. She said she was also happy to announce that in recent years there were fewer children who are entering school late.
“Statistics show that the percentage of seven year olds surveyed in the general household survey who have already completed grade 1 has increased from about 35% in 2002 to about 64% in 2017.
"The star performer that is likely to improve educational outcomes is that by 2018 we had over 2.4-million [children] accessing early childhood education in our country."