US community colleges add Apple's 'App Development with Swift' curriculum

San Francisco: Tech giant Apple on Saturday announced that its "App Development with Swift" curriculum will be offered in over 30 community colleges across the United States in 2017-2018 school year.

The course will enable the students with no programming experience to build their own fully-functional apps.

"We believe passionately that the opportunity should be extended to everyone and community colleges have a powerful reach into communities where education becomes the great equaliser," said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement.

The company is aiming to prepare the students to build careers in software development and Information Technology.

Several community colleges like Austin Community College District, Northeast Mississippi Community College, Northwest Kansas Technical College and campuses in the Alabama Community College System have added the curriculum for the session.

"Apple is going to be a force multiplier in the community`s ongoing efforts to lift 10,000 people out of poverty and into good jobs over the next five years," said Austin Mayor Steve Adler.

Apple`s app economy supports 1.5 million jobs in the US. In 2016, software developers in the US earned $5 billion through the App Store, a 40 per cent increase over 2015.