Goa Schools Embrace Coding, Robotics: CARES Scheme Makes Students Future-Ready

Panaji, Jul 31 (PTI) Government-run and aided schools across Goa are going beyond teaching traditional subjects and now imparting education in coding and robotics in tune with changing times, opening up a world of opportunities for students and making them ready for new-age industries.
Around 65,000 students in such schools in the coastal state are learning coding and robotics at a young age as part of an ambitious skilling programme of the government that aims to make them future-ready.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant recently told the legislative assembly that the state government has been implementing the Coding and Robotics Education in Schools (CARES) scheme to equip students with new skills so that they are industry-ready.
He said the scheme has been successfully implemented in government-run and aided schools and students had been winning laurels at national and international levels.
Sawant said during the COVID-19 pandemic, computer teachers from all schools were trained by the Directorate of Technical Education and Goa Engineering College to make them "master trainers".
He maintained that coding and robotics equipment are given to schools free of cost which is helping students learn new skills and prepare themselves to meet the needs of the digital world.
Dr Vijay Borges, Project Director, CARES, said the scheme is being implemented for the last four years in all middle schools targeting 65,000 students.
"Delivery of the knowledge through engineering professionals who are engaged as "teach for Goa" fellows. They deliver the content to students using project-based learning and problem-solving pedagogy," he explained.
Borges said through the scheme, computer laboratories are upgraded towards the ease of teaching and learning process. Its objective is to create responsible citizens of tomorrow who are innovators, adopters of technology and facilitators in building an "Aatmanirbhar Bharat" (self-reliant India).
He pointed out that CARES is a flagship scheme of the Goa government, imparting computational, mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills to students as envisaged in the National Educational Policy 2020.
Damodar Gaonkar, the headmaster of the Government High School at Gaodongrim village under Canacona taluka, about 110km from Panaji, said students from rural areas, too, are showing keen interest in coding and robotics subjects and performing excellently.
"I am amazed by the fact that students have evinced keen interest in learning coding and robotics. I am really happy that students are competing at national as well as international levels," he said.
Rohini Shet, a computer educator teaching coding and robotics at the school, stated that students have been given a particular syllabus for every standard.
"For the sixth standard, we teach Scratch software and in the seventh standard, we teach Dojo software and some kind of blender software. To Class 8 students, we teach Sonic pi software and some graphical editing," she explained.
Students appeared enthusiastic in learning the new-age subjects.
One of them, Samruddha Devidas, opined, "I really enjoy learning coding and robotics. I am more interested in learning coding and robotics (than other traditional subjects) as I get to know a lot of new things...it also enhances my creative thinking."
Another student, Babita Bhadvan, too, is happy to learn coding and robotics.
"We have been taught new methods of coding. For instance, we have been taught how to create music, make new videos," Bhadvan said.