Education sector paves way for young visionaries, innovators

Dubai - So, how important is it to develop students' skills that ensure they are becoming inventors and leaders, instead of just followers?

Today, there can be a kind of student who mimics influencers, follows the latest trends without question, and relies on the "easy way out" for many things. Then, there are students who invent life-changing items, build their identities, gain followers, and show leadership skills.
For example, students from some of the top universities around the world, like Harvard and MIT, are coming here for the Global Grad Show to showcase their mind-blowing inventions - such as a pen that can detect cancer cells within 10 seconds and jelly beans that cure dehydration. These aren't just ideas - they've actually invented them.
So, how important is it to develop students' skills that ensure they are becoming inventors and leaders, instead of just followers?
Kylie Monaghan, a KS-1 teacher at Gems Metropole School, said she gives her students responsibilities in each activity, aiming to build their leadership skills.
"My planning is cross-curricular, so students in my class are always drawing on knowledge and skills from one area and transferring them into another. As an example, we wrote letters to Sheikh Hamdan in UAE Social Studies to tell him about the importance of fitness for children, building on our earlier work in English," she said. "I am always linking topics to a UAE context, which connects learning to students' own lives. I give children changing roles and responsibilities in each lesson, developing their skills in collaboration, negotiation, and leadership.
"Our curriculum design in KS1, our use of educational technology, and our use of real-life contexts ensure that our students see that their ideas about any subject have value and are appreciated by adults. In turn, this builds real confidence in the children, who are then more likely to engage in leadership opportunities."
"Children lead our termly sharing-learning mornings for parents. In the final term, the students display a real 'growth mindset' in researching potential careers and showing that, through resilience and determination, anything is possible," Monaghan added.
The Rahhal project by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) is one of those initiatives that are meant to help students become leaders and get a head start on their careers.
It allows students to go to school part-time and spend the rest of the school day training or working in a profession they are passionate about, as Khaleej Times had reported earlier.
Hind Al Mualla, chief of creativity, happiness and innovation at the KHDA, had said: "Each student has a different way of learning, and through Rahhal, we are creating new experiences for both schools and students. We recognise the needs of our students and find new opportunities to see how those with unique learning needs can be supported. Recognising out-of-school learning is a big step towards the future, and every Rahhal student presents a unique story.
We will see more students transform into Rahhal learners over the coming months as the programme extends to more schools in Dubai.
"Rahhal works on a system of trust between the school and the learner and we enable this learning to take place by setting clear objectives. We're happy to meet more parents and schools to create new opportunities of learning as part of our Rahhal journey."
sarwat@khaleejtimes.com