Apple has announced the global expansion of its Everyone Can Code initiative to more than 20 colleges and universities outside of the U.S. These schools will now offer the App Development with Swift Curriculum, a full-year course designed by Apple engineers and educators to teach coding and app design to students of all levels and backgrounds.
Touted as safe, fast, and expressive, Swift appeals to developers who are aiming to build on Apple’s multiple platforms, such as iOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS.
RMIT University, Australia’s largest higher education institution, is one of the broadest international deployments of the App Development with Swift Curriculum to date. As part of its commitment to improving digital literacy, starting this month RMIT will offer the App Development with Swift curriculum through RMIT Online, and a new vocational course will be taught on campus. RMIT will also offer scholarships for school teachers who want to learn coding, and a free summer school course at RMIT’s City campus will give secondary students the chance to learn the basics of coding, says Martin Bean CBE, RMIT University vice chancellor and president.
RMIT joins more than 20 international universities who are also offering the curriculum to students this year, including Mercantec in Denmark, Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen in the Netherlands, Unitec Institute of Technology in New Zealand and Plymouth University in the UK.
“We launched the Everyone Can Code initiative less than a year ago with the ambitious goal of offering instruction in coding to as many people as possible. Our program has been incredibly popular among US schools and colleges, and today marks an important step forward as we expand internationally,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a press release. “We are proud to work with RMIT and many other schools around the world who share our vision of empowering students with tools that can help them change the world.”
