AfDB’s Digital Skills Programme Records 130, 000 Users

THE African Development Bank in commemoration of  International Youth Day, has announced the enrolment of 130,000 users in its Coding for Employment digital skills programme.

The bank said the milestone comes as Coding for Employment works to equip African youth with information and communication technology, entrepreneurship and soft-skills training to compete in a digital economy.

The programme’s online platforms offer in-demand technical courses such as web development, design, data science and digital marketing – for free.

AfDB in a statement, said with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in lockdowns and school closures across the continent, the Coding for Employment platforms experienced dramatic increases in the number of users, adding that during a one-week period in September 2020, registrations skyrocketed by 38.5%.

The bank said through its partnership with Nigeria to launch the Digital Nigeria eLearning platform (https://bit.ly/3xKrJsd) during the pandemic, Coding for Employment hit a combined total of 130,000 students, adding that registered students achieved course completion rate of more than 80%.

AfDB said, “To win the battle against poverty in Africa, we must equip our youth with digital skills that empower them for the jobs of the future,” said Martha Phiri, Director of the Bank’s Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development Department.

“Students who took the online courses in the wake of Covid-19 in Africa said learning or honing digital skills helped them advance their careers.”

“During the lockdown period, I taught myself MS Excel, using the Coding for Employment platform. Participating in the training not only smoothed my rough Excel skills but also gave me the platform to network and push myself,” one of the graduate in Nigeria, Hajara Ayuba said.

“Thanks to the Coding for Employment programme, I met one of the major criteria – data fluency and MS Excel skills – at my present NYSC place of primary assignment in Borno State Board of Internal Revenue Service. I was later retained in the job,” Ayuba added.

The Coding for Employment main digital training platform was launched in December 2019 in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation and Microsoft. It is accessible on mobile devices, even in low internet connectivity settings and has an affordable, easy-to-navigate, secured and private interface.

The Bank’s Division Manager for Education and Skills Development, Hendrina Chalwe Doroba, said the online training programme started in tandem with the opening planned upgrade of physical Coding for Employment-branded Centers of Excellence piloted in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

“The Bank aims to scale up to 130 centers across the continent in a decade. The pandemic accelerated the adoption of online learning as a necessity. Coding for Employment swiftly leveraged its online digital skills platform to continue to offer a gateway for African youth to become more digitally capable,”Doroba said.

Following the pilot programme, Coding for Employment online courses are now available in 45 countries, according to AfDB.

It stated that some 300 beneficiaries used Coding for Employment to get jobs.