Source: World Wide Web
UNESCO and Programming Cat signed a strategic cooperation agreement via video link.
On 22 April, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and China's leading innovative education brand Programming Cat signed a strategic cooperation agreement via video link to jointly work on the vision of improving the digital skills and innovation capabilities of young people in Africa and Asia, with a focus on primary and secondary schools and vocational and technical training schools. This is a major action of UNESCO to promote global education equity across departments and regions in the post-epidemic era, and it is also the latest action of China's innovative education enterprises to promote global education equity and sustainable development with science and technology.
Affected by the epidemic, education systems around the world are still suffering from different degrees of shocks such as school closures and school dropouts, especially those from the most vulnerable groups in society. Achieving the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030) aims to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all" is facing greater challenges.
In his speech, Firmin Matoko, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Africa Priorities and External Relations, pointed out that artificial intelligence is one of the core technical issues affecting the future development of the world, with profound implications for human society, economy, culture and environment. In particular, the global challenges of covid-19 must give full play to the role of new technologies in education and adolescents, and be committed to promoting gender equality, bridging the digital divide, ensuring equity in adolescent education, and promoting the continuous improvement of innovation in Africa and the world.
Mohamed Djelid, deputy director of UNESCO's Strategic Planning Bureau, also said that the current global information education is far from universal, and there are large gaps everywhere. The pandemic has challenged the achievement of the education goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. How to make young people better cope with digital challenges and promote educational equity has become a priority.
H.E. Albertus Aochamub, Namibia's Ambassador to UNESCO and Chair of UNESCO's Africa Group, said the rapid development of digitalization and artificial intelligence was a key driver of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) and that African youth must also master digital capacities and address local and regional challenges in their own way. Especially during the pandemic, people have seen the important role of online learning, and in this context, it is more necessary to promote the popularization of programming education and train more teenagers to master digital skills.
According to Fatoumat Marega, director of UNESCO's Congo Office, the global pandemic has exacerbated the digital divide, preventing millions of children from accessing education and integrating into society. She pointed out that we must fundamentally change the traditional way of education and learning, and promote the popularization of distance education such as programming. At present, China's rapid development in the field of programming education provides us with rich practices to learn from.
Li Tianchi (center), founder and CEO of Programming Cat, and Sun Yue, co-founder and CTO (right), sign a cooperation agreement.
As a representative of China's innovation education, Li Tianchi, founder and CEO of Programming Cat, said that the new round of technological revolution is profoundly changing the world, and more young people need to play an innovative role in the future. We have been driving innovation in education with technology, hoping to make programming simple through self-developed programming tools, so that children can appreciate the thinking behind programming and better become future creators. In the face of the challenge of widening the global education digital divide under the epidemic, we will continue to practice the "original intention of education", so that more children in developing countries in Asia and Africa also have dreams and master the ability to face the future, and we also look forward to more Chinese innovative education going abroad, bridging the education gap, and transmitting China's voice and contributing to China's strength in the agenda of promoting global education fairness.
Qin Changwei, Secretary-General of the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO, said that the strategic cooperation between the two sides is a project cooperation that responds to the requirements of the times. We live in the digital age, and programming is the basic language and necessary tool for the intelligent society of the future. Young people are the most innovative and creative people, and the implementation of this project will not only equip young people with digital skills, but also promote exchanges and friendship between China and Asia and Africa, build a community for mankind to share a future, and contribute to world peace.
Du Yue, Director of UNESCO's Africa Cross-Sectoral Cooperation and Partnership, pointed out that the signing of the strategic cooperation agreement between the two sides is of great significance. It proves that in the era of digital technology, the knowledge of artificial intelligence is a public good and is the knowledge and skill that all learners need to master. Especially at present, the world's development is unbalanced, the digital divide continues to expand, Africa needs to achieve leapfrog development can not be left behind, in the era of digital technology and artificial intelligence, the future of the world depends on the synchronous development of Africa, Africa's development opportunities are also closely linked to the world's scientific and technological progress.
On the same day, the two sides reached a project cooperation plan, including curriculum construction, pilot schools, distance training, competition activities, public welfare exploration, etc., which will bring the latest technological achievements and development experience of China's children's programming innovation education to primary and secondary schools and vocational schools in Asian and African developing countries, especially focusing on girls and young women, focusing on secondary and vocational schools in Africa, as well as primary and secondary schools in Asia, and promoting cooperation and exchanges between Chinese and Asian and African youth. Sustainable development is achieved by nurturing the innovative capacity of local children to better integrate into the world, while promoting gender equality and building a more inclusive digital society.
The project cooperation plan proposes to bring 1,000 schools to join the training and cooperation network through 10 pilot schools, and train 1,000 teachers and 100,000 students. The project will focus on several countries, including Kenya, Namibia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Morocco, and Thailand and China in Asia.
It is reported that this is not the first time that programming cats have carried out international education public welfare cooperation. As early as 2019, Programming Cat and the UNESCO Higher Education Innovation Center launched strategic cooperation in programming education resources and other aspects to jointly improve the application level of education informatization in Asian and African developing countries. In April last year, Programming Cat became a co-sponsor of the "International Institute of Online Education" (IIOE), providing the self-developed Turtle Turtle Editor and Python courses as teaching aids and course content for free, and providing support in technical training and teacher training, deeply practicing the educational belief of "programming without borders".
At present, programming cats have been stationed in more than 20 countries and regions such as Japan, the United States, Germany, Australia, Africa and Southeast Asia.