Poland’s new government is encouraging the country’s schools to teach programming skills to their students. Minister for Digital Affairs Anna Streżyńska is asking the Coalition for Digital Literacy, a stakeholder group, for recommendations on how to best fund schools’ programming activities.

The Minister will discuss these recommendations in January, according to a report by the ministry.

Minister Streżyńska met with coalition representatives this week at primary schools in Warsaw, taking part in “Hour of Code”, a world-wide campaign to introduce school students to basic coding skills. In Poland, Hour of Code is part of “Computer Science Education Week”, which started last Monday and will end on Saturday. The minister hopes to have even more students participate than last year, when about 80,000 people took part in the December coding activities.

Cod Week

This is the second international programming initiative that the ministry is promoting this year. In October the ministry participated in European Code Week, involving hundreds of schools in Poland. According to the ministry, this year Poland had the highest number of Code Week events in Europe, with over 2200.

The Coalition for Digital Literacy was established by the ministry in 2013. The ministry describes the group as an informal association of institutions, organisations and companies that want to increase digital literacy.

More information:

Minister for Digital Affairs announcement (in Polish)
Hour of Code
Codeweek.eu
Coalition for Digital Literacy (in Polish)