Over 300 Students from Across Serbia Complete Online Programming Programme

The free online programming programme rasPETLJAvanje, held from late November 2024 to early March 2025, brought together over 300 participants from 96 municipalities across Serbia. Among them, 36% were girls and 63% boys. Now in its third consecutive year, the programme has so far reached more than 900 students nationwide. This year’s cycle placed even greater emphasis on mentoring support through work in smaller groups.

The programme is designed to introduce students to the basics of algorithmic thinking and programming in an engaging and accessible way. Over the course of three months, participants tackled tasks that guided them through fundamental programming concepts—from installing development environments and working with inputs and outputs, to handling matrices. Special attention was given to understanding code errors and developing debating skills, recognised as an important part of the programming learning process.

Based on age and their results on an entry-level logic and mathematics test, participants were divided into five groups. With the support of mentors, they worked through the curriculum. The mentors—students from technical faculties—played a key role in making complex topics more approachable through a personalised learning approach. Thanks to their close age and shared interests with participants, mentors also served as an additional source of motivation.

Participants were organised into online classrooms on the Petlja Foundation platform, which enabled mentors to monitor individual progress and adapt the structure and pace of mentoring sessions accordingly. At any time, students could revisit lessons they found unclear and ask questions via the classroom chat, which remained available throughout the programme.

This activity was organised by the Petlja Foundation as part of the project “Building Key Computing Competencies – Towards the Workforce of the Future,” implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the Ministry of Education, and supported by the Government of the Republic of Serbia.