CASTALIA'S CodePower ADOPTED BY KENYA'S MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AS THE COUNTRY'S FIRST OFFICIAL CODE EDUCATION MATERIAL
Officially approved by the textbook council as supplementary material tailored to code education becoming compulsory
in primary education from FY2020
Castalia Co., Ltd. (headquarters: Tokyo, Japan) is pleased to announce that dated January 30, 2020, our CodePower has been approved
by KICD (Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development), an institute affiliated with Kenya Ministry of Education, Science and Technology,
as the first textbook/educational material tailored to the country's code education curriculum.
In Kenya, code education has become compulsory from FY2020 (starting January 2020); in public education, Grade 4 pupils in primary
schools (equivalent to Japan's elementary schools) will learn "Coding" in 5 lessons as part of a 12-lesson section of "Digital Technology"
under the "Science" curriculum. The programming segment has already been added in the country's major "Science" textbooks,
however, CodePower is the first adopted educational material dedicated to coding. We also plan to make the methods of instruction of
CodePower available for teachers as a mobile content using our mobile learning platform.
Castalia's "Survey on Entry-level Code Learning in Fundamental Education" in Kenya has been selected by Japan International Corporation
Agency (JICA) as a commissioned project of business model formulation surveys to benefit from JICA's Small and Medium Enterprises /
Sustainable Development Goals Overseas Business Development Support (the second of FY2018).
In Kenya, there are 37,910 elementary schools (24,241 public / 13,669 private) and 10.54 million pupils; the growth in population
continues to accelerate mainly in the youth. At the same time, job security in the younger generation has been a major social problem
and the fostering of human resources in the future is a national agenda. The Kenyan government has been implementing a 21st
century-style education since 2018 through the education ministry; they became the second country in Africa, following Rwanda, to
make code education compulsory.
The compulsory code education starts from Grade 4 and will be incorporated in higher grades each year.
Under the supervision of Professor Yasumasa Omori of Joetsu University of Education, Castalia's CodePower utilizes the methods
and contents that have been proven through feasibility studies, and is structured in a way where students can have fun learning and
teachers can teach easily in the course of gaining computational thinking in public education. The priority is to encourage interest in
coding in public education; we are determined to make a contribution to the fostering of STEM human resources in the near-future Kenya.
Features of CodePower
[caption id="attachment_2509" align="alignleft" width="1024"]
Castalia's CEO Satoshi Yamawaki (right) and project director Kimiyoshi Yokogawa (left), having received the approval notice for CodePower at the KICD campus in Nairobi, Kenya[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_2510" align="alignleft" width="1024"]
Excerpt of the workbook[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_2511" align="alignleft" width="1024"]
Population pyramid of Kenya. Ages 0-39 consists of approximately 70% of the entire population.
Source: https://www.populationpyramid.net/kenya/2020/[/caption]
in primary education from FY2020
Castalia Co., Ltd. (headquarters: Tokyo, Japan) is pleased to announce that dated January 30, 2020, our CodePower has been approved
by KICD (Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development), an institute affiliated with Kenya Ministry of Education, Science and Technology,
as the first textbook/educational material tailored to the country's code education curriculum.
In Kenya, code education has become compulsory from FY2020 (starting January 2020); in public education, Grade 4 pupils in primary
schools (equivalent to Japan's elementary schools) will learn "Coding" in 5 lessons as part of a 12-lesson section of "Digital Technology"
under the "Science" curriculum. The programming segment has already been added in the country's major "Science" textbooks,
however, CodePower is the first adopted educational material dedicated to coding. We also plan to make the methods of instruction of
CodePower available for teachers as a mobile content using our mobile learning platform.
Castalia's "Survey on Entry-level Code Learning in Fundamental Education" in Kenya has been selected by Japan International Corporation
Agency (JICA) as a commissioned project of business model formulation surveys to benefit from JICA's Small and Medium Enterprises /
Sustainable Development Goals Overseas Business Development Support (the second of FY2018).
In Kenya, there are 37,910 elementary schools (24,241 public / 13,669 private) and 10.54 million pupils; the growth in population
continues to accelerate mainly in the youth. At the same time, job security in the younger generation has been a major social problem
and the fostering of human resources in the future is a national agenda. The Kenyan government has been implementing a 21st
century-style education since 2018 through the education ministry; they became the second country in Africa, following Rwanda, to
make code education compulsory.
The compulsory code education starts from Grade 4 and will be incorporated in higher grades each year.
Under the supervision of Professor Yasumasa Omori of Joetsu University of Education, Castalia's CodePower utilizes the methods
and contents that have been proven through feasibility studies, and is structured in a way where students can have fun learning and
teachers can teach easily in the course of gaining computational thinking in public education. The priority is to encourage interest in
coding in public education; we are determined to make a contribution to the fostering of STEM human resources in the near-future Kenya.
Features of CodePower
- - Workbook (26 pages including front/back covers) and Teachers' Guide (60 pages including front/back covers)
- - Non-PC dependent, unplugged course structure; uses micro robot Ozobot as educational tool.
- - Tailored to the curriculum newly issued by KICD: 5 lessons in total. Fitting to the short 35-minute lesson, each lesson is constructed
not to take time for the preparation for the lesson and the clearing up afterwards. - - Supervised by Professor Yasumasa Omori of Joetsu University of Education, the lessons feature Japanese-oriented elements such as
learning how to fold a paper plane. - - Textbook in English language. Word usage and expression tailored to primary school grade 4 English proficiency level.
- - Release timeframe: Spring 2020 (tbc)
[caption id="attachment_2509" align="alignleft" width="1024"]
Castalia's CEO Satoshi Yamawaki (right) and project director Kimiyoshi Yokogawa (left), having received the approval notice for CodePower at the KICD campus in Nairobi, Kenya[/caption][caption id="attachment_2510" align="alignleft" width="1024"]
Excerpt of the workbook[/caption][caption id="attachment_2511" align="alignleft" width="1024"]
Population pyramid of Kenya. Ages 0-39 consists of approximately 70% of the entire population.Source: https://www.populationpyramid.net/kenya/2020/[/caption]