Thirteen is a good age to stop playing with code and start making things other people use. This page is for teenagers in Peru who read English, and for their parents: the three directions a young coder can take, which language suits which goal, how Peruvian students have actually fared at the world's top school computing contest, and a short Python lesson that catches a mistake even experienced programmers make.
Teaching live since 2020 · 10,000+ students worldwide · real code from the first lesson, explained in English
The quick answer
Modern Age Coders teaches coding to teenagers of 12 to 17 in Peru. Every class is live, online and taught in English by a mentor based in India, who works through real code with the student on a shared screen. Teens learn Python first, then choose a direction: building apps, games and websites; contest problem solving in C++ or Python for events like Peru's Informatics Olympiad; or a recognised Python certificate. Classes run in a group of fifteen to twenty or one to one, at any hour that suits the family in Peru time, and the first class is free.
Where teenagers begin
Three starting courses for teenagers in Peru
Most teenagers start with Python. Those already aiming at contests or games start elsewhere, and the free class helps decide.
Teenagers in Peru who can follow spoken English, or want to get there, and who are ready to type real code. Three groups write to us most often.
Bilingual, IB and Cambridge pupils
Their maths and science already come in English, and many will meet computer science as an exam subject. Learning code in the same language avoids translating every term twice before an IGCSE or Diploma paper.
Teens who moved to Peru
Arriving at 13 or 14 is hard enough without a coding club in a language you are still learning. Here the teaching is in English, and the student keeps one mentor who knows their level.
Peruvian teens with plans
University reading, programming documentation and most help forums are in English. A teenager who learns to code in English is practising both at once, every week, with a real reason to listen.
What should a teenager in Peru learn to code: build, compete or certify?
All three start with the same foundations. After about four months, most teenagers lean towards one of them, and the choice shapes which language and which course comes next.
Build
Apps, websites, games and tools that someone else can use. This suits the teen who wants to see a result and show it off. Languages: Python, then JavaScript, C# or Java. Proof of progress: a portfolio of finished projects.
Compete
Short, hard problems solved against the clock, as in Peru's Informatics Olympiad. This suits the teen who enjoys puzzles and maths. Languages: Python to start, C++ for speed. Proof: contest results and solved problem counts.
Certify
An exam with a clear syllabus, such as the Python Institute's entry certificate, the PCEP. This suits the teen who likes a defined target. Language: Python. Proof: the certificate itself, from the body that sets the exam.
Why not all three at once?
Because depth beats breadth at this age. A fourteen year old who has built one complete game understands variables, loops and functions far better than one who has started five tutorials. We keep a student on one route long enough to finish something real.
Routes are not fixed. Contest training makes a builder faster and more careful; building makes a contest coder better at reading long programs. Many of our teenagers switch after a year.
How the first months look
Month one: typed Python, variables, conditions and loops, with a small program finished every week. Month two: lists, functions and files. Months three and four: a first real project, and a first timed problem set.
By then the student, the mentor and the parent can usually see which route fits. The mentor writes a short note suggesting the next course, and the family decides.
Which language
Should a teenager learn Python or C++ first?
Python first for almost everyone, then C++ for those heading to contests. The Peruvian contests and MINEDU's own pilot point the same way.
What Peru's own programmes use
The Peruvian Informatics Olympiad, the OPI, is organised by UTEC and is free for every secundaria pupil in the country. Its 2025 rules allowed C++ or Python in the first round, which was held online, and only C++ in the in-person final.
MINEDU's Fábrica de Programadores pilot, launched in July 2025 for 1,000 pupils in 4th and 5th of secundaria in Lima Norte, chose Python and offered its graduates the chance to sit the PCEP exam. Python is where the state chose to start.
What we recommend
Start with Python. It lets a beginner think about the problem rather than the punctuation, and every idea learnt in it, from loops to recursion, carries straight into C++ later.
Move to C++ when timed problems start to matter. A student aiming at the OPI final needs C++ by then, and its standard library, with ready-made sorting and data structures, is a big part of contest work. That switch usually takes a few weeks, not months.
For the certificate route, the Python Institute describes the PCEP-30-03 as an entry-level exam with no prerequisites: 35 questions in 50 minutes, a pass mark of 70%, and a credential valid for five years. Our certification course prepares students for it; the Python Institute, not us, sets and awards the exam. For a 5th-year student weighing it up, our Spanish page on programación para 5to de secundaria goes through it in detail.
Peru at the IOI
How has Peru done at the International Olympiad in Informatics?
Peru first sent students in 2022 and has competed every year since. The IOI's own statistics site lists every result, and the record is honest: one bronze medal and one honourable mention in five years.
Peru at the International Olympiad in Informatics, 2022 to 2026
Year
Peruvian contestants
Top Peruvian place (of all contestants)
Awards to Peru
2026
4
196th of 375
None
2025
4
256th of 330
None
2024
3
258th of 353
One honourable mention
2023
4
221st of 350
None
2022
4
166th of 349
One bronze medal
Source: IOI Statistics, Peru results and Peru member page (stats.ioinformatics.org), read on 9 November 2026. The site counts 13 different Peruvian contestants over these five years and a total of 0 gold, 0 silver and 1 bronze medal plus 1 honourable mention. The total of 19 places is our own addition of the yearly counts; it is higher than 13 because some students went more than once. We do not print students' names.
How a student gets there
In 2025, UTEC's rules set the route: an online first round, an in-person final at UTEC, and the top four of the final chosen for the IOI. Students had to be no older than 20 on 1 July 2025 and either enrolled at a Peruvian school in 2025 or out of school since 2024. For 2026, registration closed on 18 March and the final was held on 11 April.
UTEC runs two sister contests from the same site: OPEIA for artificial intelligence, held on 19 March 2026, and OPECIA for cybersecurity. All three are free for secundaria pupils.
What the table tells a young coder
That the gap is real and can be closed. Peru's best finish came in its very first year, and every year since, its students have placed in the middle or lower half of a very strong field. Countries that do well at the IOI usually train students for years before the contest.
That training starts with fundamentals, not tricks: careful reading, choosing the right data structure, and testing edge cases. We teach that kind of thinking with problems we write ourselves. We are not connected with UTEC, the OPI or the IOI and we never reproduce their problems.
Contest training is not for everyone, and it does not have to be. A teenager who builds an app that a family member uses every day has learnt just as much. The table matters because it shows what serious practice can lead to, not because every student should aim at it.
Secundaria
Does secundaria in Peru teach programming?
Not as its own subject. In MINEDU's national curriculum, the CNEB, none of the secundaria areas is computing or programming, though some private schools add it.
The national timetable
Under the regular school day (Jornada Escolar Regular), secundaria has 35 teaching periods a week, with Matemática at 4 in every grade. The nearest area to computing is Educación para el Trabajo, at 2 periods a week, or 3 under the longer full school day of 45 periods; its competency is about running enterprise projects, not writing code.
MINEDU places pupils by their age on 31 March: about 12 in 1st of secundaria and 16 in 5th. Our groups follow age and level, so a 13 year old who has coded for years is not held back.
Where coding fits instead
For many Peruvian teens, the closest thing to a school computing contest is mathematical. The national maths olympiad, ONEM, drew more than 1.7 million secundaria students in 2026, according to El Peruano. Coding and contest maths reward the same habit: reading a problem slowly and proving the answer.
Teenagers are online in any case. INEI reports that 92.5% of Peruvians aged 12 to 18 used the internet in the second quarter of 2026. The question is whether they only consume, or also build.
Our classes run beside school, never in its place. We are not connected with MINEDU, UTEC or any school, we do not award Peruvian grades, and a student who finishes a course receives our own certificate of completion.
A real lesson
What does a lesson look like? Ranking a contest scoreboard in Python
This is a lesson we teach to teenagers from about 13, early in contest training. The contestants and scores are invented by us. The rule is the usual one for timed contests: the higher score wins, and on equal scores, the faster contestant wins.
The task
Five contestants, each with a score and the minutes they took. Sort them into a ranking. Python's sorted accepts a key, and a key can be a tuple, so the natural idea is to sort by score and then by time.
Because the highest score should come first, almost everyone adds reverse=True. Version 1 runs cleanly and puts the two 300-point contestants at the top. It looks right at a glance.
The bug
Look at the tie. Diego and Bruno both scored 300, but Diego took 120 minutes and Bruno took 140. Diego should be first. Version 1 puts Bruno first, and does the same to Carla and Ana lower down.
The reason: reverse=True reverses every field in the key, not just the score. Larger times now come first too, so the tie-break works backwards. The fix is to reverse only the score, by sorting on its negative.
Version 1: sorted by (score, time), then reversedPython
results = [
("Ana", 250, 95),
("Bruno", 300, 140),
("Carla", 250, 80),
("Diego", 300, 120),
("Elena", 180, 60),
]
# Higher score wins; on a tie, less time wins.
board = sorted(results, key=lambda r: (r[1], r[2]), reverse=True)
for place, (name, score, minutes) in enumerate(board, start=1):
print(place, name, score, minutes)
What Version 1 printsOutput
1 Bruno 300 140
2 Diego 300 120
3 Ana 250 95
4 Carla 250 80
5 Elena 180 60
Our exact output with Python 3: both ties are broken the wrong way round.
Version 2: negate the score, keep time as it isPython
board = sorted(results, key=lambda r: (-r[1], r[2]))
for place, (name, score, minutes) in enumerate(board, start=1):
print(place, name, score, minutes)
What Version 2 printsOutput
1 Diego 300 120
2 Bruno 300 140
3 Carla 250 80
4 Ana 250 95
5 Elena 180 60
Run after the same results list: Diego above Bruno and Carla above Ana, as the rule requires.
Then we show a second fix that older students like. Python's sort is stable: items that compare equal keep the order they arrived in. So you can sort twice, least important key first. Sort by time; then sort that result by score with reverse=True. When we ran it, it printed ['Diego', 'Bruno', 'Carla', 'Ana', 'Elena'], the same ranking as Version 2. Negating works only for numbers; the two-pass method works for names and dates as well.
The lesson behind the lesson: a program that runs without an error can still be wrong, and the place to look is the tie, the edge, the case where two things are equal. Contest problems are built around exactly those cases. So are real systems that rank anything from search results to exam marks.
Warm-up. Before running Version 1, write down the ranking you expect. Compare it with the output and find the first line that differs.
Your fix. Write Version 2 without looking, then add a sixth contestant who ties with Diego on both score and time. Where should she go, and why does Python put her there?
Two passes. Rank the contestants by score, highest first, and then by name in alphabetical order on ties, using two calls to sorted.
Explain it. In three English sentences, tell your mentor why reverse=True broke the tie and why negating the score does not.
AI and teenagers
Can teenagers use AI tools for coding?
Some, within each company's age terms and only after the student can solve the problem alone. We follow the terms the companies publish, not the ones people assume.
What the terms say
OpenAI requires ChatGPT users to be at least 13, with a parent or guardian's permission under 18. Anthropic requires Claude users to be at least 18, so no teenager uses Claude in our classes. GitHub sets 13 as the floor for Copilot.
What contests say
UTEC's 2025 OPI rules forbid generative AI for solving the problems. A teenager who leans on AI during practice will find that crutch removed on the day that matters.
What we do
Students solve first, alone, and explain their reasoning. Older teens then use permitted AI tools to review their code and question it, the way a professional uses a second opinion, never to write the answer.
Teenagers curious about how AI itself works can go further on our Spanish-language page, curso de IA para adolescentes, which covers building simple AI models rather than only using them.
Peru time
What time are classes for teenagers in Peru?
At the hour the family chooses. Peru keeps the same offset all year, five hours behind UTC, and India is five and a half hours ahead of UTC, a gap of ten and a half hours. The rows below are conversions, not a schedule.
Sample Peru hours and the same moment in India (conversions only)
Peru time
India time
In a Peruvian teenager's day
06:30
17:00
Early, before the school bus
13:30
00:00, next day
After a morning shift at school
16:30
03:00, next day
After an afternoon of homework
18:00
04:30, next day
Before dinner
21:30
08:00, next day
Late evening, for older students
Source: IANA tz database, America/Lima (UTC minus 5, unchanged all year) and Asia/Kolkata (UTC plus 5:30). Conversions are ours.
When booking, the family picks an hour on its own clock and our system translates it for the mentor. The hour then stays put through the whole school year and the summer break, because neither Peru nor India moves its clocks. Every Peru page, including those for younger children and adults, is on the Peru hub.
Progress
How does a teenager move from beginner to independent coder?
In clear steps that the student, the mentor and the parent can all see. These levels are ours, not a school standard.
Our levels for teenage coders
Level
Typical point
The student can
Shown by
1. Writes
First month
Write short programs with conditions and loops
A weekly program that works
2. Structures
Months 2 and 3
Split work into functions and use lists and dictionaries
A program another student can read
3. Finishes
Months 3 to 5
Plan and complete a small project alone
A finished app, game or tool
4. Tests
Months 4 to 6
Find the tie, the edge and the empty case before the mentor does
Tests written before the fix
5. Chooses
Months 6 to 9
Pick the right data structure and explain the cost
Timed problems solved and explained
6. Leads
After a year
Review another student's code and teach a concept
A short lesson given to the group
For parents
Ask to see level 3 work: a finished project, however small. It tells you more than any mark.
Level 4 is the sorting lesson above. Students who reach it start testing their own claims in other subjects too.
For students
When your code runs, ask what happens on a tie. Then try it.
If you cannot explain a line, you do not own it yet. Rewrite it until you can.
More courses
Nine more courses for teenagers
Each one live, in English, with one mentor throughout, in a group or one to one.
I
Build
Apps, web and games
COTE / BUILD / 01
Full stack web for teens
React and Node.js, from a first page to a working web app.
A weather forecasting site with live conditions for any location.
by Krish
Fees
Fees for teenagers in Peru
We charge in US dollars, to a card, once a month. The conversion to soles happens at your bank, at its rate on the day of payment, so statements can vary by a small amount.
Reviews left on Google by students and parents, unedited.
★★★★★
"The one step solution for my son. Modern Age Coders make learning coding so simple that kids love it. The teachers explain complex concepts clearly with practical exercises and interactive content."
Ria Mukherjee
Parent
★★★★★
"Modern Age Coders has been a game-changer for me. I struggled to grasp IT concepts and coding before joining, but their classes transformed everything. I can now confidently write complex programs with ease."
Samriddha Mondal
Student
★★★★★
"One of the most wonderful education centres out there. Education is not limited to school syllabus but focuses on skill development."
Vansh Agarwal
Student
★★★★★
"My child Dhairya is really enjoying the Modern Age Coders classes. This is his first online class and he eagerly looks forward to it. I can already see his improvement, and the teachers are very cooperative."
Sonam Oswal
Parent of Dhairya
★★★★★
"Modern Age Coders have wonderful teachers who teach in a clear, easy and practical way. The teacher boosts students' confidence and inspires them to learn without hesitation."
Sonu Goyal
Parent
★★★★★
"I highly recommend this computer coding class! The teachers are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about coding."
Ritu Kedia
Parent
Teenagers and parents ask
What teenagers and parents in Peru ask about coding classes
Are the classes in Spanish?
No. Every class is live, online and in English only. Mentors speak clearly, slow down when needed and match each student's pace and accent, and every step also appears on the shared screen. A Spanish-language page describes the classes for parents, but the lessons are always in English.
Which language should a teenager learn first?
Python, in almost every case. It lets a beginner concentrate on the problem, and the ideas transfer directly to C++, Java or JavaScript later. Teenagers aiming at the final of Peru's Informatics Olympiad move to C++, the only language its 2025 final allowed.
Can a complete beginner of 15 join?
Yes. Most of our teenage students start from zero. The first course assumes no previous code at all, and the free class places the student in a group of a similar level or in one-to-one lessons.
Do you prepare students for the OPI?
We teach the problem-solving skills the OPI and similar contests reward, with problems we write ourselves, in Python and C++. We are not connected with UTEC or the OPI and never reproduce their problems. Students register through UTEC's own site, where entry is free for secundaria pupils.
When are classes in Peru time?
Any day, any time, flexible: choose a batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at the hour that suits your family. India is ten and a half hours ahead of Peru all year, so 18:00 in Peru is 04:30 the next morning in India.
Can teenagers use ChatGPT or Claude in class?
Not Claude: Anthropic's terms require users to be 18 or older. ChatGPT needs a user to be at least 13 and, under 18, to have a parent's permission. In class, students solve problems on their own first and use only tools whose terms allow their age.
Is the PCEP certificate worth it for a teenager?
It can be a useful target. The Python Institute describes it as an entry-level exam with no prerequisites: 35 questions, 50 minutes, a 70% pass mark. It proves basic Python, not the ability to build large programs, so we pair it with a real project.
Will this help with IB or IGCSE computer science?
Yes, as a foundation, and we also teach IB Diploma Computer Science and IGCSE Computer Science 0478 directly. The school and the exam board set and mark every assessed piece of work; we help the student understand the material deeply.
Are you connected with MINEDU or a school in Peru?
No. Modern Age Coders is an independent online school whose mentors work from India. We have no connection with MINEDU, UTEC or any school in Peru, and award no Peruvian grades. Students who complete a course get our own certificate of completion.
What does a teenager need at home?
A laptop or desktop computer, a steady connection and a headset with a microphone. A phone is not enough for typing code. Classes use an ordinary video call, and any software needed later is free and installed with the mentor's help.
The free class is a real lesson: a short problem, a first program and a conversation about what the student wants from coding. Afterwards the mentor recommends a starting course, a group or one-to-one lessons, and a time that fits the school week.
Want more detail before booking? How we teach walks through a class, and the full course list holds every syllabus.
Lessons are live over video, taught from India, in English. For the fastest reply, write to us on WhatsApp in English.
Want a class sooner? Book a priority demo
A priority demo is a full class of about 45 to 60 minutes. After the class the mentor sends a written skill report and a personal learning roadmap on WhatsApp. If you enrol, the demo fee is adjusted against your first month's fee. Share your demo Order ID with us on WhatsApp and we take it off.
