The blogmaster congratulates BU blogger Peter Lawrence Thompson and Ten Habitat for launching a Coding School in Barbados. From all reports it is the first of its kind in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.
Well done!
Related links:
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Just to put this in perspective, I’m neither the founder nor the director of TEN Habitat, just a team member. We work hard to make Barbados better, but we know there are others working just as hard elsewhere.
What are the cost to attend?
Code 101, the 12 hour introductory course, costs Bd$100. This is 50% less that the same course costs in the USA.
WAIT
PETER YOU AINT GROW UP AT ALL MAN
YOU DE SAME HEIGHT YOU WAS WHEN YOU WAS A LIKKLE BOY MAN
OR DEM TWO FELLAS PUN STILTS OR GOT MARFAN’S OR SUMTIN SO?
@Georgie Porgie,
Only my mind grew… apparently it took all the nourishment and my body never exceeded 5’4”
Are their any additional cost like enrollment fees and tuition cost
You need to set up a page where people can donate. Catching my butt in the US, but can still make a small donation
Congratulations PLT and company, ya know, quite recently the debate and call was for the implementation of coding in the schools curriculum, kudos for such a speedy implementation, though not within the curriculum, its viable and valuable for entreprenuers… Is there certification?
@ peterlawrencethompson,
Well done.
Good to see bright educated Bajans returning to Barbados after contributing to other countries.
Congrats to you and the crew @ PT
I willing to donate to the cause also
@Mariposa
There are no additional costs for Code 101
@ Peter are you looking to offer QA testing, IT Business Analyst training and Project Management for IT?
@nineofnine
Certification is accepted by many US companies. Graduates of this programme in the USA are employed by Microsoft, Expedia, Xbox, Amazon, and other big companies as seen on this page: https://www.codefellows.org/
@Heather
The TEN Habitat Source Code Developer Academy will offer exactly the same curriculum as https://www.codefellows.org/
This is because they have a track record of their graduates finding work at major tech companies.
@TheOGazert & @John2,
Thanks for your generous offer to support this work, but hang on to your money for the moment.
Our plan is to establish an investment fund that can channel investment from the diaspora and elsewhere directly into Caribbean companies on which we have performed due diligence. This is a tall order… much more complex that string up the Code Academy… so you will need to give us a bit of time.
There have been many institutions offering free online programming courses for some years – https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250323
Best to try one to see if programming is a right fit before outlaying cash that can least be afforded. Why not try for free?
The wake up call has been sounding over these many years.
@Sid
Quite a few need to be in a classroom setting where professionla are able to offer guidance and set a pace that students can follow,
The fee of $100.00 for 12 hours is not excessive…
@TheOGazerts
Agreed some would struggle on their own but in a classroom there is still only an allotted time for completion of tasks. Of course it’s easier in a classroom to ask a question and receive an immediate answer but a lot is gained by having to rely on one’s initiative.
When you write code as a day job, often you are given a broad outline of the task and a timeline.
Google doled out lots of Raspberry Pi’s with an expectation that perhaps 1 in 100 would be using theirs productively longer term, regarding 1 in 100 as a success. Many of the best programmers are also self taught and the cost of hardware platforms nowadays is very affordable especially with the proliferation of cheap Single Board Computers and online help is excellent and readily available via google searches or from very dedicated individuals.
There is hardly a day when I don’t have to offer help online – for free.
@Mr Peter Lawrence Thompson
Good work. I sincerely hope that your organization achieves all of its objectives in this worthy project. However on a related note (i.e training in technical and vocational fields), I read with alarm and distress that 98% of the graduates of the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic left with unit certificates rather than full diplomas. This was essentially due to failure of “graduates” in some parts of their courses. See page 4 of Barbados Today. According to the Principal of the SJPP the students either could not grasp or complete minor literacy and numeracy based courses!
98% !!!!! Not 9.8%
The report went on to share that the SJPP will be moving to a two shift operation because of the high number of applicants.
98% of the SJPP students (the future mechanics, plumbers, hair dressers, tailors, electricians, agriculture technicians, etc) have problems with Reading “Riting and “Rithmetic!!!!
If one takes the SJPP students as a sample of the working class segment of Barbados population and juxtaposes the concerns of Mr Arnold MacIntyre of the IMF (see page 5 of Barbados Today) that 3/4 of the regional talent lives outside of the region then is it any wonder why Barbados is heading for failed state status?
How do successive Ministers of Education remain so calm and seemingly unconcerned if after overseeing the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars every year for the last 50 years, 98% of the SJPP “graduates” have challenges with literacy and numeracy?
On a related note Marsha Hinds made the point yesterday on a radio show that dialect is we ting and should not be expected to conform to standard English. Not sure where she wants to go with the argument.
Regarding the point made by Marsha Hinds – It’s an example of the mollusc mentality, a shell on 3 sides and the fourth firmly stuck to a rock. The world over has come to grips with the reality that “standard English” is the lingua franca. Not understanding that fact is either a sign of a lazy sloppy mentality or sheer backwardness.
To my initial surprise I have seen 2 Chinese persons in Borneo chatting, one from Hong Kong and the other from Borneo, their common language was English, likewise for Dutch and French citizens or any combination of nationalities – they all tend to be quite fluent in English.
I have taught and attended courses where there have been a mixed bunch from all over Europe and even attending one at Management College Europe in Brussels that included 2 Argentinians – all fluent and competent in delivering presentations in English. We all spoke English.
On another occasion I was in the USA with a group of 6 Germans preparing a computer system for a German bank when someone uttered something in German only to be told by the senior guy that only English should be spoken, that said once never had to be repeated.
An Asian teenager here in the UK once pointed me to a West Indian senior citizen sitting on a park bench, remarking that the gent was in England 42 years and still couldn’t speak English. I could have told him I knew others who have been here for over 50 years that are exactly the same. If that’s not a shame I don’t know what is.
PLT…you and your team mates are mental and physical GIANTS….you know just what to do to uplift this and future generations of disenfranchised bajans out of the quagmire of stagnation created for them by anal, visionless governments…kudos to you and them…
“How do successive Ministers of Education remain so calm and seemingly unconcerned if after overseeing the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars every year for the last 50 years, 98% of the SJPP “graduates” have challenges with literacy and numeracy?”
Because it suits their agendas of semi literate voters/yardfowls who are unable to think for themselves and are easily robbed..that is the population they want to remain imprisoned on the island…the least educated, that is why they keep the schools in that sad condition to spew out those who would blindly vote for and are stupidly loyal to the thieves of parliament….while they sell them out.
“Google doled out lots of Raspberry Pi’s with an expectation that perhaps 1 in 100 would be using theirs productively longer term, regarding 1 in 100 as a success. Many of the best programmers are also self taught.”
Very true…but if you have primary school kids learning coding from esrly.. right up until they decide their career choices, you already have a very skilled generation…branching out into various areas ……with necessary skills..
One relative of mine started coding in highschool…by the time they reached UW…and accessed what was offered, let’s just say…Japan was the first to recruit them….because doors automatically open for existing skills…worldwide.
There are overheads to cover in shared work spaces, the $100 fee is more than fair, seeing that some parents pay $30,000 Canadian or US per semester in some universities…just so theur children can get access to certain skills….some pay more..
PLT and his team’s efforts are a springboard for Barbados and the Caribbean’s children, who no one else had the courage or the good intentions to offer them these opportunities before.
RE On a related note Marsha Hinds made the point yesterday on a radio show that dialect is we ting and should not be expected to conform to standard English. Not sure where she wants to go with the argument.
MARSHA IS SUGGESTING THAT DIALECT IS A FORM OF CODING
WUH WUNNAH TINK?
@David re “dialect is we ting ‘
man she rite as shite yuh. effin wunna doan onstan um is wunna dead.
anedda ting dat is we ting is talking shite on radio programs.
duh got any courses in dialect online so dat we overseas Bajans can learn to speak betta Bajan ?
Why is she speaking english and not dialect to a Bajan audience?
Back to the topic.
It is always good to study in a classroom and then go online to ” learn more “.
Some of us need “structure ” me myself and I included. lol
Good points Hants.
Nothing wrong with using dialect, it is about also being able to use standard when time and place demands it. The fact we are having the conversation exposes the bigger issue of a dysfunctional education system.
@ David,
Barbados probably has a dysfunctional Primary school education system.
By the time I went to HC I could read a newspaper, write an essay and do basic arithmetic without mistakes.
Primary school education in Barbados used to provide a solid foundation for future learning.
Back in the day the teacher and principal were respected and held all in their charge to a high standard that was not questioned. Today what do we have? A simple analysis but a place to start. We have to establish and enforce standards with the prerequisite a relevant education system.
The ignorance thick enough to cut with a knife, if one tells me that the bajan dialect which in reality is a clear mixture of African, English, Irish and Scottish accents and nuances…I would understand….though many are totally unaware that many English words wrapped in dialect are French, latin and Spanish, because many English words were stolen from other languages by the British…and most people do not know that we speak these three languages…. pronunciation and all…on a daily basis..
…standard English is a first language taught in schools and used to conduct business so that everyone can understand and be on the same page with what is being said……dialect is spoken at home, among each other and for when ministers/lawyers/idiots on a political platform want to deceive the people.
…..speaking dialect is just another language like the many dialects spoken in the Yoruba or any other tribe of Africans, Chinese, etc…and should NOT take precedent in schools or business places…does any PM speak dialect at the UN or when meeting foreign dignitaries …no, because they would likely not understand what the hell is being said, it is another language, so Barbados speaks two languages, dialect and standard English..
I am now familiarizing myself, as I said I would, with the Bajan dialect.
Turns out while learning the Yoruba language I came across the word Bata and remembered that there was a shoe store on the corner of Swan and Tudor streets named Bata….which in Yoruba means SHOES…so it was just yesteryear as recent as the 70s that the Yoruba language was still being spoken in Barbados….obviously the population was/is totally unaware that some Yoruba/African words survived British criminality..
But ya idiots in the parliament lost all that power of the African mother language, and it will never return unless they face their African heritage.
I will now retreat for a little while to communicate with my ancestors in Yoruba.
hants
what you and I learned in primary school in the late 50’s and early 60’s was practical and basic
it was meant to be functional
because before our time very few went further in school, and they were given what was thought, and proven to be absolutely necessary
what our predecessors and we got in primary school was designed to an end——-and it worked
when my first boy was doing common entrance they were all kinds of text books in which there was stuff that I did not learn in english classes at HC
the emphasis had been changed and probably not for the better
when I read job applications for my wife’s business it was easy to tell the age of the applicant by a short glance of the application letter
writing hand poor
sentence structure poor
punctuation poor or non existent
and on and on
SAD
Well done PLT, more than just talk. More should follow in your footsteps.
@WW&C
fyi the Bata Shoe company a.k.a. Baťa, was a Canadian company of Czechoslovakian origins, where Baťa was the founder’s surname. In Youruba it may mean shoes, but that is not its origin. The Bata Shoe Museum can be found in Toronto, the concept of the late Sonja Bata.
Hahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
“……….though many are totally unaware that many English words wrapped in dialect are French, Latin and Spanish, because many English words were stolen from other languages by the British…and most people do not know that we speak these three languages…. pronunciation and all…on a daily basis….”
The above comments are not entirely accurate.
The English language received its early influences by a mixture of various different languages spoken by the invaders and settlers of Britain, such as Latin, Indo European (Celtic and Germanic), Old Norse and French.
Latin as a result of the Roman occupation of Britain (29%);
A mixtures of Germanic languages (26%) spoken by Celts and tribes from the North Sea coast of Germany, Netherlands and Denmark, namely the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who raided and settled in Britain during and post the Roman occupation.. A “mixture” of their dialects resulted in Anglo-Saxon or Old English;
Scandinavian warriors/pirates called the Vikings, who originated from Sweden, Norway and Denmark, also raided the coast of Britain and in some instances, made permanent settlements there. Certain English words originated from the Vikings;
The Normans, who came from Normandy, a northern territory of France, conquered and ruled Britain. The Norman Conquest brought social and political changes to Britain, and the French language (29%) made certain variations to Old English to form what was called Middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” was written in Middle English.
Spanish is included in the 16% of other languages that influenced English.
Artax November 13, 2018 3:59 PM
RE The above comments are not entirely accurate.
WARU WILL BE COMING FOR YOUR TAIL SOON
Georgie Porgie
WARU mentioned on more than one occasions that she does NOT read my contributions.
As such, my “tail” does not have anything to fear.
@ WARU
@ Northern
The Bata Shoe Store was owned by Hindus. I was under the impression that the shoes were imported from India. The soles were made of rubber and were not the preferred wear, since they could not be half- soled by local shoemakers. Is Bata an East Indian surname?
Dont know Vincent…I do know that in Yoruba Bata means shoes…I was too small to know the quality shoes they sold…however…Bata in Hindi means….tell
So if Hindis were the owners of the store, they were using a Yoruba/African name for the store.
What does bata mean in Yoruba?
English Translation
Copy
shoes
More meanings for bata
boot noun
75% of use
bata
shoe noun
25% of use
bata
sho
rare
bata
shoelace noun
rare
bata, okunn bata
bootless
rare
bata
pair noun
rare
bata, onimeji
@VC
Bata had shoe plants all over the world. The actual retail stores, carrying the Bata name were a combination of company owned and franchised operations. I know nothing about the Barbadian operation, other than I do recall a Bata Store. The ‘Bata model’ was to build a factory in a town, preferably a small town, and then build all the houses for employee use. In Ontario, the town of Batawa was such a town, the combo of Bata and Ottawa. But they existed in many other countries, though Bata kept its Head Office in Toronto, in a wildly shaped building at the Don Valley Parkway/Eglington, on the site of the newer Ismaili center and Aga Khan Museum. Their retail stores carried 90% Bata made and branded products.
“So between the 1920s and 1940s Bata installed factories in Asia, South America and Africa (which he foresaw as virgin market), thus becoming the largest shoemaker in the world.”
This would explain the name Bata because his original Czech Republic name was spelt Batia.
lol..I don’t know what I would be going for Artax for, if he wants to research more than the 3 languages I researched to expand how many other languages make up the English language, more power to him, I was only interested in the three languages I actually researched, have intimate knowledge of and spoke about, but did mention the british stole from other languages.
@WARU
I again agree that the younger they start the more they are to succeed.
One case in point, a young lad also of Barbadian parentage spent part of his summer holiday with me, started playing games on my Sinclair Spectrum. Not only did he play them, he altered the Basic code to expand what they did.
When he went back to school and was set programming homework the teacher argued that he could not have written such advanced code so I wrote a letter including my telephone number telling that teacher he was sadly mistaken and underestimated the lad.
Well in in 40’s now, he has been gainfully employed as a programmer in higher level languages.
I doubt many of his peers prove to be his equal.
An English lad, Leigh was at college studying computer science when the their Windows 2000 system went down and all solutions were catch 22. Leigh said he could fix the problem, it involved them driving him home to collect his Linux system and back at school he fixed the problem easily and quickly. They refused to allow him access from home and followed him around saying he was a hacker and they had to be watchful.
He dropped out of college and went to work as a systems administrator/programmer for a London company.
Last I heard he was the Technical Support Director for Cable & Wireless worldwide, not bad for a lad totally self taught.
At Amdahl (UK) our director thought that hiring First Class Computer Science University graduates, giving them 18 months of intensive training and 18 months working under the wings of experienced guys would result in fully competent staff — WRONG! of the 12 hired, 10 were let go when layoffs started, the other 2 were up to the job – the lady eventually went off to Australia to work for a bank and the guy who had US citizenship (1 parent was American) went off to the states.
The original spelling I was told is Baťa. The others Batia, Bata, Biata are all various forms of Baťa.
Their first plant in Africa was in Kenya, the second in South Africa. Both well after the name Baťa was used as the company name, beginning in the 1890’s.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.