Apple today announced that 70 colleges and universities across Europe have adopted its "Everyone Can Code" initiative, which aims to help people learn to create mobile apps for the App Store.
Education institutions in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, and Portugal are now offering Apple's App Development with Swift curriculum, which is a full-year coding course designed by Apple educators and engineers.
"Coding is an essential skill for today's workforce, and through Everyone Can Code, we're giving people around the world the power to learn, write and teach coding," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "Since launching Everyone Can Code two years ago, we've seen growing excitement for the initiative from schools around the world, who are increasingly incorporating the curriculum into their classrooms."
Institutions highlighted in Apple's press release include: the Technical University of Munich in Germany, which uses Swift and ARKit to teach business skills that are relevant to the local workplace; the publicly funded Mercantec Vocational College in Denmark, which will offer the course to its 3,000 students; and the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen in the Netherlands, where 34,000 students will be offered the chance to learn to code. The U.K.'s Harlow College will also offer the course to its 3,000 students, some of which are adults seeking to regain employment.
"At Harlow College, we recognize that learning to code will help students prepare for a technological future. It develops their approach to problem solving, logic and reasoning, as well as reinforcing key mathematical skills," said Karen Spencer, Principal of Harlow College. "Everyone Can Code demonstrates how any student can code by providing a unique and innovative environment for learning."
Apple introduced its App Development with Swift curriculum in early 2017, with the materials available as a free download from the iBooks Store. At the time the initiative was introduced, six community college systems serving 500,000 students across the United States agreed to offer the Apple-designed course. Later in the year, the course expanded to 30 more community college systems in the U.S. before becoming available internationally.
