State Secretary of the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunication Tatjana Matić has ceremonially opened the Europe Code Week in Serbia, which was celebrated in the Startit Centre by holding lectures for about one hundred pupils of primary schools from Belgrade.
“Children can get to know more about coding through games and fun, and thus develop their computer literacy, even though they might not choose coding as their occupation. By understanding the way the new technologies function, which they use anyway, they become more active participants of contemporary information society. On the other hand, they acquire skills which they might find useful for realising their own ideas regardless of the field they choose. We expect coding to become a regular subject in schools since the PM Aleksandar Vučić gave the reform of education a special place in the new Government Programme”, Ms Tatjana Matić has reminded.
“Europe Code Week is an important initiative since all the citizens need to be familiar with the idea that new technologies change the world, assist in development of science, medicine and all other field, and also make the everyday life easier for people”, State Secretary has stressed.
She has reminded that the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications realised last school year the educational campaign on the use of new technologies, IT Caravan, under the slogan “Smart and Safe”, which was participated by 5000 pupils of primary schools in 15 cities in Serbia, announcing that the IT Caravan will be realised this school year as well and that this time the accent will be placed on the promotion of coding among children and the young.
Lecture regarding the Europe Code Week, organised by the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications and Startit, was given by Čaba Vereš, Ambassador of the Code Week for Serbia, teacher of the computer science and the founder of the coder club in Subotica, Bojan Rošković, student of Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Faculty of Physics and a trainee at Google, Gavrilo Andrić, student of Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Petnica, a roboticist, and Ranko Trifković, teacher of computer science giving free Scratch courses in the Startit for children. Within the Code Week, the representatives of the Startit will give promotional lectures in Belgrade schools.
Europe Code Week was first celebrated in 2013, upon the initiative of young councillors of the European Digital Agenda, with the idea to make coding visible, accessible and to show the young and the elderly how ideas are realised by using codes, to demystify these skills and gather motivated people to learn together.
Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications has invited all the representatives of the IT community, as well as schools, faculties, non-government organisations, state institutions, to organise an event with this aim, and to place it on the map of the Code Week, at the site codeweek.eu (codeweek.rs).
This year, the code week will last from 15-23 October and so far 124 events have been announced to be held in Serbia.
