By Amna Khaishgi, TwoCircles.net
Dubai: ALIG Educational & Welfare Society and Coded Minds have tied up with iSTEAM for providing technical training to students of government schools from six Indian cities.
ALIG and Coded Minds, Indian NGOs, in partnership with Dubai-based international technology company, iSTEAM, would run an eight-week course, enabling school students to get hands-on learning experience in animation and app development. This innovative pedagogical approach is the first-of-its-kind where students of government schools in Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal will be receiving technology education from an international company through online classes.
“The time has come to train the students in skills which are directly relevant to the industries and careers of the future,” said Dr Imran Ali, Executive Director of ALIG Society. He discussed that bridging the education to skill gap is extremely important and students must be prepared technically and digitally owing to recent educational trends. He added that the course curriculum is specifically designed to train school students from standards 5 to 10, nurturing a new skill set in them that would act as the base for future employment opportunities.
Dr Ali informed that this is a pilot programme beginning from July 1. It would be available in Jamshedpur, Lucknow, Aligarh, Moradabad, Barabanki and Kolkata during which 70 selected students would be given tablets by ALIG to access the course in English for two months. In these two months of training, the learners would not only be trained to break down complex problems into more manageable solutions but will also be taught to approach problems with a developmental mindset, hence ultimately improving their learning agility. In the second phase of this initiative, more students would be enrolled.
“It is absolutely critical for us to impart the right skills to the future generation and prepare them to cope up with the challenges of the future,” said Omar Farooqui, founder and president of Coded Minds.
While Jamshedpur’s ALIG has reached out to more than 30,000 direct beneficiaries through different programs and initiatives in education, health and skill training sectors, Coded Minds is currently operating in six different countries, offering education to hundreds of Indian expatriate students in the UAE.
Speaking about the future of technology in education, Farooqui said he believes such an educational collaborative with global technology companies would go a long way in developing critical skills for young students. According to him, the global education sector is facing lots of challenges and it is the right time “to reinvent not just the curriculum but also the classrooms and teaching methods.”
With regards to the unique ed-tech programme by ALIG, Coded Minds and iSTEAM, he has congratulated the team for prioritizing empowerment of school children in India through 21st technology skills from such a ripe stage.