DUBAI IS ‘A CITY OF THE FUTURE’ WHERE THE NEXT GENERATION WANT TECH JOBS
▶ Dwight School, from the United States, to open next year with innovative teaching using virtual reality and robotics
Hollywood star Vin Diesel and Star Wars film score composer John Williams are just some of the former pupils who could be judging projects at the new Dwight School campus in Dubai.
The new Barsha school is due to open in September next year, and is promising to help pupils enhance their education by preparing them for emerging tech industries.
Teachers at the school said Dubai is perfect to host the first school from America to open in the UAE – with fees expected to top Dh130,000.
Head teacher Janecke Aarnaes said that is good value because pupils will be supported through the school to achieve their ambitions.
“Dubai is the perfect place for an innovative school, because it is a city that is looking at the future,” she said. “We are looking at how we can make changes to education and bring it to the next generation.
“Dwight pupils can go on a personalised journey.”
Innovation, engineering, entrepreneurship and creativity are at the heart of what Dwight aims to bring to the crowded UAE education market.
Figures from the recent RSA conference on cyber security in Abu Dhabi showed young people were increasingly looking at alternative careers in the technological industry.
In a survey backed by the US national cyber security alliance, 67 per cent of Emiratis said they were more likely than a year ago to consider a job in cyber security, compared with 48 per cent regionally and 39 per cent globally.
Dwight School claims it is helping to prepare young people in Dubai to meet that growing demand to pursue more tech-based jobs.
The school’s Spark Tank encourages pupils to pursue their passions and ideas, and develop new products. Pupils learn the process of developing a business idea and preparing it for launch.
Pupils present their ideas in front of a committee of industry professionals and former alumni who have success in the relevant field.
“Through allowing students to pursue these areas we can make them ready for the future,” Ms Aarnaes said.
“They will be able to create their own jobs and find new opportunities. That is where Dwight and the UAE are a perfect match.
“Spark Tank is open to everyone, and pupils who are about to leave the school go through an innovative engineering programme to help prepare them for the next step in their lives.
“We help prototype their ideas, test them and prepare the product through the design phase and launch to help them with their own business. This has been tried and tested in our New York school, and will be something we will be launching from Day 1 in Dubai.
“Our students will sit facing some of these famous alumni during the Spark Tank judging.”
One pupil to have found success through the project is a 13-year-old in America who developed a 3-D prosthetic hand able to detect neurological signals, which will help amputees.
A prototype has been presented to manufacturers to ready it for the healthcare market.
A Grade 6 Spanish pupil with a keen eye for fashion developed her own clothing line and launched an online company to sell clothes to others her age.
Technology will be an integral part of teaching methods, using virtual reality headsets and robotics to help children learn.
Artificial intelligence will be a key part of the learning curriculum. Pupils will learn the technical skills of robotics, coding, programming and creative parts, and have 3-D printers at their disposal.
Dwight School will be based on a campus of 40,000 square metres in Al Barsha, next to Brighton College Dubai. Both schools will have their own standalone campus, but also have shared facilities, such as the centre of excellence for Arabic language, culture and the arts.
Class sizes will be restricted to about 20 pupils, with larger classes divided up to suit specialist teaching requirements, and offer a New York visiting programme for pupils.
Dr Abdullah Al Karam, chairman of the board of directors and director general of KHDA, said the school would offer parents more options in Dubai.
“We are delighted to welcome Dwight School to Dubai,” he said, which widens local availibility of the International Baccalaureate curriculum.