Google has announced that it is expanding its Digital Skills for Africa programme by engaging local organisations to train 200,000 students in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa in one year.

CS First, the Google programme created by educators and computer scientists, targets children aged nine to 16 years. It introduces coding and computer science to students in a collaborative and creative club environment.

The CS First club members build projects in Scratch (scratch.mit.edu), a blocks-based programming language.

It said the training will be delivered through 26 collaborating organisations across Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. For areas with limited access to the internet and limited devices, CS First may be delivered through CS Unplugged.

The head of brand and reputation, Sub-saharan Africa, Mojolaoluwa Aderemi-Makinde, said the training programmes seek to improve the children’s confidence in interacting with computers and their overall confidence and willingness to try new things.

She said, “With growing internet penetration across Africa, and the increasing trend of kids interacting online, Google believes it is important to provide helpful information to children and parents to enable them to take appropriate measures to stay safe online.

“The training takes learnings from Google’s Be Internet Awesome campaign and the content is carefully drafted to provide helpful tips to kids and parents, and information on useful tools like Google’s Family Link,” she noted.