Passionate in grooming Sri Lanka’s next generation with capabilities to take the island into a new era of knowledge-based innovation and growth, Sri Lanka Association for Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM) has always dedicated itself to the cause of technology education for children. As an initiative of the association’s Capacity Forum, TechKids has been one of the most influential children’s educational programmes that have instilled IT knowledge and developed a thirst for technology education among school kids.
Continuing the quest of influencing the next generation of Sri Lankans to be digitally savvy citizens in every sphere of activities they embark on, SLASSCOM recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Board of Management of The Career Guidance, Counselling & Skills Development Centre of The Royal College Union (RCU).
The event was participated by Channa Manoharan, Chairman, SLASSCOM, Nishan Mendis – Director, SLASSCOM, Boshan Dayaratne, Chairman, Board of Management of the Career Guidance, Counselling & Skills Development Centre of RCU, Kavinda Weerakoon, Treasurer, Board of Management of the Career Guidance, Counselling & Skills Development Centre of the RCU, Vasana Wickremasena, Bulletin Editor, RCU, Harshana Adikary, Manager, RCU Skills Centre, Chamil Jeewantha, General Council Member, SLASSCOM and Hasini Narangoda, Associate Manager – IT Education, SLASSCOM.
SLASSCOM Chairman Channa Manoharan, outlined that the TechKids initiative supports the endeavour of embedding future skills in kids and youth thus improving the nation’s IT literacy.“This collaborative partnership between SLASSCOM and the Royal College Union Skills Centre not only expands the reach of TechKids to a wider audience but also leads to improving the digital acumen among Sri Lanka’s younger generation” he added
The Royal College Union Skills Centre having successfully introduced several educational programmes for children, will now have TechKids as its latest venture.
Under the agreement, the Royal College Union Skills Centre will be operating TechKids coding clubs and conducting sessions leading to TechKids Certification distribution for participating students. This will be carried out through the facilitation of SLASSCOM-accredited trainers and in accordance with the association’s TechKids curriculum to ensure the authenticity of the programme contents and teaching.
SLASSCOM will play an engaging role, which includes being involved in assessing the quality of the delivery and coverage of content as per the curriculum and delivery outline of the sessions. SLASSCOM will also facilitate the engagement of industry resources to review the TechKids syllabus and provide continuous updates to the Royal College Union Skills Centre with regards to the TechKids Certification Curriculum and provide curriculum contents for Scratch, Microbit, HTML and CSS, Python and other related technologies, as well as training and accreditation for the TechKids facilitators of the Royal College Union Skills Centre.
Boshan Dayaratne, Chairman, Board of Management of Royal College Union Skills Centre of the RCU, sharing his views on the partnership, highlighted the importance of such collaborations to ensure that young children are taught IT and technology related content with a proper balance of academics and industry relevance. He notes: “It is indeed a very exciting venture for us to be engaged in the operations and delivery of the TechKids programme. Technology is a key enabler of careers across industries, and we hope that with the support of SLASSCOM we will be able to inspire many young minds to explore the field of technology at greater lengths, whether or not their career goals will be directly involved with IT.”
Expanding its scope to yet another prospective cluster of young Sri Lankans, the Capacity Forum of SLASSCOM is dedicated to ensuring the successful operation of TechKids at the Royal College Union Skills Centre, and will be working closely towards a long-term partnership to benefit a wide array of students in their journey towards becoming digitally savvy citizens. SLASSCOM is partnered and supported in their initiatives by their Corporate sponsor Dialog Axiata PLC.