• Home
• /
• UAE

UAE schools adopt CBSE's online conceptual learning

Dubai - It will give opportunities to students to be creative, think divergently, and learn through simulations and real-life situations

Schools in the UAE are embracing the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) newly launched online interactive conceptual maths and science learning programme.

Institution heads here pointed out that this is part of India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 that envisions a transformational shift in education by nurturing students’ creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and conceptual understanding.

A letter by CBSE Director Academics Joseph Emmanuel to the heads of all CBSE-affiliated schools, states: “The focus of the series will be to clarify NEP and showcase how to effectively implement NEP 2020 across the schools.”

Teresa Varman, Principal/CEO, GEMS Millennium School – Sharjah, said: “CBSE’s new online interactive learning programme, ‘Eklavya Series,’ created in collaboration with IIT Gandhinagar, aims to deepen students’ conceptual understanding while promoting enjoyable and engaging learning. Students will have opportunities to be creative, think divergently, and learn through simulations and real-life situations.”

The sessions will be held online every Sunday afternoon, starting September 26.

Lalitha Suresh, Principal, GEMS Our Own Indian School, said: “This interactive online educational programme will contain numerous hands-on activities, projects and models. This will help in conceptual understanding of various topics by raising thought-provoking questions, introducing assignments that promote out-of-the-box creative thinking (Why Neeraj Chopra threw javelin at 36 degrees) and inspiring DIY (do it yourself) project videos using local materials that relate the curriculum to real life. As per the circular released by CBSE, the content will be of varying levels and will cover topics in the science and mathematics curriculum of classes VI-XII.”

Abhilasha Singh, Principal, Shining Star International, Abu Dhabi, said: “CBSE, with its forward thinking, is on the innovation path. The ‘Eklavya Series’ is an exciting venture and we have registered our school as it is an excellent opportunity for the students and the teachers too. It will help the students connect the concepts and principles with real life applications.”

She added: “In the world of work that our students will step into, in the future, would require them to be problem solvers and we all know that analytical skills do not develop with amassing large quantities of knowledge. Learners will need a deeper understanding of concepts and their applications in real work scenarios.”

However, the challenge will be with the time as the classes will start at 2.30pm Gulf Standard Time (GST). Therefore, we are working on a plan so that students can attend the lesson Live. We are eagerly waiting for the series to start later in September.”

But students can attend these 30 sessions asynchronously as well.

Arogya Reddy, Principal, Ambassador School Sharjah, said: “Students can individually register and anybody can attend these sessions. It will be available on Youtube. In order to acquire a certificate after its completion, pupils need to pay a small sum of Rs100 or roughly Dh5. Although it's optional, we are certainly encouraging our students to sign up for the course because this will help them improve their cognitive skills. Simultaneously, we are also strongly urging our teachers to go for these sessions as they will get a certificate for completion of a professional development course which will prove to be beneficial for them in the future.”