Asha Chennai, a non-governmental organisation, has entered into an agreement with the education department of the Tamil Nadu to work with 50 teachers in 50 government schools to facilitate a one-year computer science curriculum to any one class of students of classes VI-IX.

The project, Asha Computer Education (ACE), will be funded by Amazon under its Amazon Future Engineer programme. The project, launched on October 19, will serve as a pilot to take computer science education to all children in Tamil Nadu, according to a statement.

Asha trainers will provide training to these teachers both in person and online. In addition, Asha trainers will visit these schools on a regular basis. All teachers will be provided a laptop and all schools that do not have a computer will be provided 3 computers.

Teachers will be provided with a curated curriculum to teach digital literacy and a pedagogical guide on teaching computer science. The programme will include about 35 hours of coursework in various digital literacy topics and a light introduction to programming. The government teachers will teach the class one hour a week for 35 weeks followed by 12 weeks of project work. “Asha has been teaching computer science to students from I to XII standards through programmes at various government schools and its rural technology centres. More than 15,000 students benefit from this,” said Rajaraman Krishnan, Coordinator, Asha Chennai.