Idea 327 of 500. Cluster 16: Education and the exam funnel
Coding clubs for schoolchildren in the districts, run by returning graduates
The mechanism, from the book
177,000 qualify every year and 45,000 get a place. The other 130,000 are a market that nobody has built for, and the polytechnic is not a second choice when it leads to a job.
Every idea in cluster 16 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Offer one school in a district a free weekly coding club for a term, run on donated or borrowed laptops, and ask a returning graduate to lead it. At the end, show parents what the children built and ask whether they would pay a small fee for the next term. Enough paying parents to cover the graduate's time is the proof.
- Who pays first
- A parent in a district town who wants their child to learn coding and will pay a monthly fee for a club with a real teacher.
- What leaves today
- Graduates who return have skills that district schools lack, and children who never meet a programmer rarely become one.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. OneThe Letter That Says Yes and Means No
177,588 qualified, 45,000 placed
More from cluster 16
- 321Employer-owned technical colleges: the hotels train the chefs, the port trains the planners
- 322Apprenticeship brokers who match a firm to a student and handle the paperwork, for a fee from the firm
- 323Nursing colleges to the British and Australian standard, with the return clause built into the fees
- 324Electrician, plumber and welder certification centres whose certificates are recognised abroad
- 325English tutoring by video for the districts, at a price a family can pay, with a test at the end
- 326Tuition classes that publish their pass rates, so that parents can compare
Idea 327 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.