4 million people created code with the help of EU Code Week in 2021

Publication date: January 24, 2022

In 2021, 4 million people participated in EU Code Week activities all around the globe. This means that in the last five years more than 15.5 million people have taken part in Code Week activities ranging from learning basic programming concepts and practicing computational thinking to manipulating data, tinkering with hardware and designing games. The average age of participants was 11 years and, as in previous years, nearly half of the participants (49%) were girls.  

In 2021, 34.000 people – mostly teachers – organised more than 78.000 activities, a 15% increase compared to 2020. 88% of the activities took place in schools showing teachers great involvement in the initiative. 11% of the activities were held online and 83% in-person (6% unspecified).  

EU Code Week provides teachers with free resources, tutorials, ready-made lesson plans and other materials to help them bring coding and digital technologies to all subjects and classrooms. New for 2021 were the 18 Coding Challenges developed by the community and partners.  

The EU Code Week blog is also a source of best practice activities and success stories shared by teachers around the world. Check out how pre-schoolers practiced computational thinking while learning to dance the Syrtaki dance from the film Zorba the Greek or a collaborative project between schools in Spain, Italy, Romania and Tunisia where pupils worked together using coding as a tool in projects related to environmental challenges. In Latvia, 500 high-school pupils met a tech entrepreneur during their coding class. In Albania, high school pupils tutored younger children from the community who learned more about artificial intelligence and robotics. 

Thousands of teachers participated in the two Code Week MOOCs organised in 2021. The AI basics for schools focused on how to integrate AI resources into teaching practices. In the Code Week Bootcamp MOOC, teachers of all subjects from pre-primary to secondary discovered different resources, concrete lesson plans and tools on how to inspire students to learn to code.  In the last four years, 20.000 teachers have participated in EU Code Week MOOCs and other training courses.  

Activity organisers took active part in the CodeWeek4All where the challenge is to build alliances with at least 9 other activity organisers and/or with organisers in 2 other countries. In total, 3.600 alliances formed and 800 fulfilled the criteria and will receive a certificate of excellence. 170 alliances met both conditions. 1.343 persons organised more than 10 activities on their own and will rewarded the Super Organiser Certificate. 

The ten most active countries were Turkey (27.000 activities), Italy (18.000) and Poland (15.000), Greece (2.300 activities), Austria and Romania (both 1.800), Hungary (1.400), Croatia, Spain and Germany (all 1.000). However, when it came to organising the most activities in relation to the size of the population Monaco, Malta and Estonia topped the scoreboard. 

New EU Code Week podcast series 

2021 saw the birth of the EU Code Week podcast series, where Arjana Blazic and Eugenia Casariego from the Code Week Team talks to guest on topics such as how robotics can enhance education, the role of coding in music, uses of game design and gamification etc. New episodes are published every Tuesday. 

Code Week Hackathons in 6 countries 

Teams with over 300 upper secondary schools’ pupils from Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Romania and Slovenia competed in the EU Code Week hackathons in 2021. They met mentors, participated in workshops and developed solutions to challenges such as fighting food waste, helping young people find jobs, connecting NGOs and local food producers etc. The winning team from each country took part in the EU Code Week hackathon final where their projects were judged by an international jury. The winners were Team Strassuim from Slovenia.  

Birth of Arab Code Week in 2021 

In 2021, Arab Code Week was also launched by the Arab Organisation for Education, Culture and Science (ALECSO), in cooperation with the Tunisian Association for Educational Initiatives. EU and Arab Code Week share the same goal of making it easier to learn and understand programming in a fun and entertaining way. 

Get ready for 10th anniversary edition 

8-23 October 2022, EU Code Week celebrates its 10th birthday. Special anniversary activities will be organised all year around starting with the Cake challenge. Here you are challenged to practice computational thinking by baking a birthday cake for Code Week.  

  

About EU Code Week 

EU Code Week, is a grass-roots initiative supported by the European Commission, which aims to bring coding and digital literacy to everyone in a fun and engaging way with activities organised around the world by teachers and coding enthusiasts. It contributes to the EU’s Digital decade targets.  

 

 

EU Code Week 2021 – Final results 

  Number of activities  Activities per 1 million inhabitants  Total Participation  Share of woman/girl participation  Activities in school 
Austria  1.790  193,3  43.182  50%  98% 
Belgium  112  9,8  44.212  55%  44% 
Bulgaria  460  66,4  17.707  44%  71% 
Cyprus  34  28,2  1.394  51%  97% 
Czech Republic  177  16,4  57.320  48%  53% 
Germany  997  12,0  26.777  42%  15% 
Denmark  20  3,4  1.040  49%  20% 
Estonia  628  471,8  11.440  32%  54% 
Spain  953  20,1  86.708  48%  89% 
Finland  27  4,9  5.203  51%  44% 
France  148  2,1  6.219  56%  71% 
Greece  2.283  213,0  95.786  46%  97% 
Croatia  1.111  274,5  68.307  49%  93% 
Hungary  1.372  140,7  35.194  31%  83% 
Ireland  147  29,4  7.620  55%  79% 
Italy  17.903  300,4  797.428  48%  98% 
Lithuania  444  158,9  18.709  47%  96% 
Luxembourg  222  351,1  4.057  50%  96% 
Latvia  163  85,7  8.129  48%  82% 
Malta  526  1001,4  15.946  52%  63% 
Netherlands  518  29,7  14.720  50%  86% 
Poland  15.229  401,2  505.492  39%  68% 
Portugal  612  59,4  49.168  46%  87% 
Romania  1.755  90,9  53.407  44%  88% 
Sweden  61  5,9  1.667  46%  84% 
Slovenia  135  64,3  3.823  27%  67% 
Slovakia  170  31,1  8.567  44%  67% 
Albania  526  184,6  29.923  57%  97% 
Armenia  18  6,1  864  62%  100% 
Azerbaijan  359  35,5  10.250  48%  94% 
Bosnia and Herzegovina  62  18,9  2.269  49%  43% 
Switzerland  13  1,5  59  89%  16% 
Egypt  14  0,1  499  55%  100% 
United Kingdom  70  1,0  10.538  49%  64% 
Georgia  40  1,1  735  30%  100% 
Isle of Man  11,8  52  49%  100% 
Jordan  320  31,4  11.120  70%  81% 
Morocco  34  0,9  6.003  63%  97% 
Monaco  41  1044,7  868  49%  100% 
Moldova  93  35,1  2.694  52%  94% 
Montenegro  12  19,3  428  47%  92% 
North Macedonia  187  89,8  5.510  44%  99% 
Norway  0,4  1.245  3%  0% 
Palestine  731  152,2  48.777  81%  99% 
Serbia  222  32,1  25.904  54%  79% 
Tunisia  147  12,4  10.346  63%  98% 
Turkey  26.897  318,9  1.829.370  55%  98% 
Ukraine  208  4,7  8.416  71%  38% 
Kosovo  12  6,4  171  0%  100% 
Rest of the world  208     26.423       
TOTAL  78.214    4.021.684  48,7%  88,3% 

 

For any questions about the results, please send an email to: info@codeweek.eu