The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Technology (IT) Board in collaboration with the Elementary and Secondary Education Department has launched the initiative of the Early Age Programme (EAP) software programme for more than 3,000 students from grade 6th to 9th to promote market oriented digital skills among the students. After successful completion of the first phase of the initiative, in which students from 60 government schools in 14 districts of the province took part, the second phase has been initiated in which 15,000 students will be selected from 300 government schools of KP.
According to the Manager for EAP, Zeeshan Khan, more than 3,000 apps, games and software have been developed by students in the first phase of the EAP. Currently, 45-90 willing students are selected from every school who not only play games on smart phones but are taught to develop games and applications. "Coding is not part of curriculum anywhere in Pakistan. Spread over a time span of 8 months, the curriculum is designed by Code.Org and MIT Scratch which is the same curriculum adopted globally. Trainers from the IT board teach programming and coding in a fun and interactive manner," he added
While commenting on the initiative, the Minister for Elementary & Secondary education Atif Khan stated that the best way for Pakistan to prosper is to equip and train our children with modern technology and that is the top priority of our government and education policy. "Our kids are our future and we want to empower our future with the right kind of technology and skills. Every child in the future will rely on technology and will be successful if they are powerful users of technology that surrounds us." he added.
Under a similar initiative of the KPITB, the first phase of the Youth Employment Program (YEP) has successfully trained 2100 students in various courses including Game Development, which is a 95 billion dollars' industry worldwide, digital business communication, blogging and content writing, graphics design, word press, digital marketing, YouTube & Interactive Media, Internet of Things, Word Press, Full Stack Development, Women in technology and Data Sciences. The second phase of the (YEP) has been launched with the target of equipping 40,000 students with market oriented digital skills till 2019.
According to the Project Director Shuaib Khan, the YEP is part of the Government of KP's new "Digital KP" initiative-which is a four-pillar strategy aimed at expanding internet access, developing digital skills, improving digital governance, and promoting digital economy in the province.