Dear CodeWeek Community & dear Coding friends,

Tl;dr, the Dutch delegation is ending its association with CodeWeek Europa.

CodeWeek began as a grassroots initiative led by educators passionate about bringing coding skills to students across Europe. From its inception, the Netherlands has been a dedicated contributor, publishing special Donald Duck editions, securing national news coverage, and developing the CodeWeek SchoolLabel program. All in close cooperation with the computer science teachers’ association i&i. After thorough consideration and discussions with Dutch CodeWeek Leading Teachers, we have decided to end our involvement with the CodeWeek initiative, effective immediately.

Key Reasons for Our Decision

Our decision stems from the fundamental shift away from CodeWeek’s grassroots origins to a national hub model, coupled with serious concerns about JA Europa’s limited experience in education and coding. Notably, JA Europa in the Netherlands has failed to respond to our communications, raising further doubts about their capacity to manage this initiative effectively.

CodeWeek played a significant role in our national discussions on digital literacy, helping to successfully integrate coding into the Dutch National framework for Digital Literacy. With this integration now complete, there’s less need for separate coding promotion initiatives. Additionally, despite our significant contributions, the Netherlands was not designated as a hub, and we have consistently faced challenges in receiving appropriate support and recognition. The playing field has changed dramatically from a grassroots initiative to a dynamic of volunteers versus paid labor. This shift is coupled with serious concerns about JA Europa’s limited experience in education and coding. We have previously communicated our serious concerns to the consortium, warning them about our doubts regarding this new direction, but these warnings went unheeded.

Given these issues, we feel JA Europa is not up to the challenge of leading CodeWeek effectively. We will be informing our network that the consortium is receiving a motion of no confidence from the Dutch team.

Moving Forward

Sandra and Simone, both leading teachers in the Netherlands, have expressed interest in potentially taking ambassador roles, and we wish them success should they choose to proceed. We remain committed to promoting digital literacy in the Netherlands through other channels.

We thank everyone we’ve collaborated with over the years and wish the wider CodeWeek community well in its future endeavours.

As always with kind regards from the friends from the Netherlands,