What is code.sprint?

Launched in 2018, code.sprint is a national coding contest that has become a yearly calendar event, originally designed for students studying Computing in secondary schools. It is now a coding championship widened to include challenges open to Computing secondary students, Computing/IT post-secondary students, and an open category mostly targeted to under/postgraduate students, established software developers, and educators in the IT field.

The prizes for the top three code sprinters include world-class study programmes and mentorship programmes that further the candidates' programming skills, as well as cash prizes. Moreover, students within the secondary category can also achieve an MQF level-3 accreditation.

The main objective is to gauge participants’ problem solving, computational and programming skills in an environment different than students are accustomed to in schools and during traditional exams. The challenge is an open book exercise, and the participants’ work is judged against a set of assessment criteria based on functionality and effectiveness.

The Ministry for Education is constantly exploring new ways to minimise the gap between education and industry, seeking to ensure that what students learn in schools is contextualised with what happens in the workplace. Surely, code.sprint does this in the most effective manner.