South African ed-tech startup SkillUp Tutors has developed and launched its own coding course, which teaches children coding fundamentals and helps them build their own websites.
The Cape Town-based SkillUp offers parents and students across South Africa access to thousands of highly skilled and vetted tutors based on grades, subject, location, and budget.
The startup – which in April secured a Series A funding round from Knife Capital – launched the SkillUp Online Lesson Space in July, and is now further expanding its offering by launching its own coding course.
Built utilising SkillUp’s proprietary Teaching Kids to Code software, the course teaches the fundamentals of coding and offers users access to a team of expert tutors who help them build their own websites using HTML and CSS.
SkillUp has launched its pilot coding project in partnership with Rustenburg Girls’ Junior School in Cape Town. Since the start of term three, SkillUp has been teaching more than 300 girls from grades three to six at the school how to code. Each week, the girls build a website based on a variety of topics.
“The programme is intended to equip kids with a fundamental and ubiquitous skill to help them navigate the ever-changing world of technology. These young girls we are teaching have been highly engaging and are already adding employable skills to their yet-to-exist CV’s. In a short couple of months these eight-to-12-year-olds will be streaks ahead of their contemporaries, not only in South Africa, but on a global playing field,” said Matthew Henshall, chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of SkillUp. “We’ve even had some parents asking if we can teach them what their kids are being taught at school.”
Other schools and individuals will be able to access the coding course shortly, with SkillUp having plans to expand its offering to more schools in Southern Africa and even further abroad in 2019.
