Call for Participation in the 2024 Coding Challenge for the Alternative Pathways Programme for Lower and Secondary Schools

British Council in Albania is implementing the “Alternative pathways”  - (Reducing Irregular Migration from Albania to the UK, by providing alternative pathways to Albanian youth) a new project funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, represented by British Embassy Tirana that engages directly with teenagers (13-18 years old) in migration hotspots, in northern Albania, providing them with alternative pathways to irregular migration by combining skills and capacity building, engagement with media and community action in order to build capacities, trust and create opportunities locally.

Call for Participation in the 2024 Coding Challenge for the Alternative Pathways Programme for Lower and Secondary Schools

For all schools that participated in the "Alternative Pathways" programme, we invite them to participate in the 2024 Coding Challenge.

The Coding Challenge opens on 04 November and closes on 30 November 2024.

The purpose of our Challenge/Competition is to engage students/children from the 8 (eight) municipalities of Northern Albania (Diber, Kukës, Mat, Bulqizë, Klos, Has, Tropoja, Malësi e Madhe) included in the training of the Alternative Pathways Programme, implemented by the British Council from October 2023 to March 2025. Inspiring young people to solve everyday problems in their schools and communities through programming physical devices.

The Coding Challenge will use the micro:bit device to enable children to design a project in response to the Sustainable Development Goals and explore solutions to problems they face in their everyday lives.

Schools are strongly encouraged to develop innovative solutions to protect the environment, save energy and combat the impact of climate change.

The challenge is organized in partnership with ASCAP - the Quality Assurance Agency for Pre-University Education, Ministry of Education and Sports of the Republic of Albania and funded by the Government of the United Kingdom.

 

To apply, simply follow our instructions at the bottom of this page and view the stages of the Coding Challenge.

Eligibility The 2024 Coding Challenge is open to all students in grades 7 to 9 from schools that meet the following criteria:

• They participated in our training programme for critical thinking and problem solving and received the micro:bit as part of the "Alternative Pathways" programme. The full list of eligible schools can be found here in the annexes part.

• Schools whose teachers have completed the online course on using micro:bit devices.

The Coding Challenge will open on 04 November and close on 30 November 2024, the evaluation process will take place in three (3) stages:

Before starting the application process, you must first express your interest by filling in Annex 3 and sending it to the email address emarilda.leti@britishcouncil.org.

Then a link will be sent to the email address you provided. for your personalized online folder where you can upload your application with all required documents.

Phase 1

In the first phase of the challenge, all submitted applications will be evaluated against the eligibility criteria. To qualify for project evaluation, projects must be submitted by teams, consisting of only 2 team members and the coordinating teacher.

In addition, participants are invited to submit the following:

- Contact details – specified in the registration form

- Form for privacy of competition information and obtaining signed consent: Appendix 2

- Presentation document: Appendix 3 – brief description of the project, the problems it addresses, how will it help students, their school or their communities? How does the project relate to the Sustainable Development Goals?

(The project description must be submitted as a 'Word' format document. Photographs of handwritten letters will be marked with minimum marks.)

- Uploading the file to the Online Portal, which will be sent to you by email and will be confirmed as soon as the documents are uploaded and functional.

- Preparation of a video of the project for the preliminary presentation of the project that is presented to participate in the contest. (2-5 min)

 

All required documents are supposed to be uploaded to the online file.

Please complete all documents in digital format. Any incomplete application will be removed at this stage.

More information on how to choose the project and how to prepare a video can be found in the Guidelines for Schools.

 

Phase 2

Complete applications submitted will be evaluated against the following evaluation criteria:

1. Overall project goal and impact (20%) - Sustainable Development Goals What is the change your project aims to achieve? How will it affect the community? (reference to written submission Q2 and Q3)

2. Originality and creativity in solving a problem (20%) - (How will you approach solving the problem in a unique way? (Refer to written submission Q4 and Q5)

3. Functional design of the project (20%) - How well is the prototype designed? Are there design flaws? Does it work as intended? Are all the planned functionalities there? Did you try to build it? (reference to written submission Q6)

4. Technical complexity of the code (40%) - Is the product functional? (reference to written submission Q7); (Appendix 4: Rubric with specifications on the technical complexity of the code)

5. Ability to follow instructions as set forth in the Competition Rules.

 

ICT expert jury members will select up to 10 best projects to be submitted for phase 3 of the challenge.

The Coding Challenge which will be organized in the city in the premises that will be confirmed during the final selection stage.

The list of selected projects that will be invited for the final competition will be published on December 3, 2024, on our website, and participants will be notified through the email provided in the application.

 

Phase 3

The teams with the selected projects will participate in the final stage, organized in their city.

- In the Coding Challenge activity, each team will have 5-7 minutes for project presentation and questions from the jury.

- The presentation will be given in a direct format where the 2 representative students together with the coordinating teacher will be able to present the visual project (presentation of the models in-through maket, micro:bits, Laptop etc..)

- The jury will have 2-5 minutes to ask questions about the project and will evaluate the projects based on: general knowledge of the project content; technical complexity of the code; and presentation skills.

The jury will select and announce one winning team and two co-winning teams of the Coding Challenge.

Only the winning team and the first accompanying team (second place) are eligible to participate and present their project in English at the Regional Coding Challenge. The jury in phases 2 and 3 would use an evaluation system with points (1-5) for each criterion and an evaluation percentage.

In the event of a tie, the jury will select the winning project based on overall ability to meet the Challenge criteria. The jury's decision is final.

The 'do your:bit' challenge.

If you are interested and want to participate in the International Challenges, visit and follow the project page in the Global Challenge 'do your:bit' 2024.

Do your:bit is the micro:bit Challenge that challenges children and teenagers around the world to develop creativity and come up with solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals

 

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

 

The planned calendar is as follows: