Sharjah Education Council has devised a summer programme that it says will develop the skills of its most talented pupils and prepare them for university.
A total of 48 pupils from various private and public schools across the emirate are enrolled in this year’s course.
The pupils from grades four to 12 joined the scheme after being nominated by their parents or schools.
They had to pass an interview stage and a set of tests that assessed their intelligence and knowledge and identified their skills.
Talent identification is new to us and is still not a high priority in most of our schools
Alia Al Shamsi,
education expert
“The initiative aims to identify, develop and nurture our pupils’ talents by involving them in a group of inspiring and innovative training programmes,” said Mariam Buali, head of the Gifted Welfare section at Sharjah Education Council.
“The 180-hour programme is specifically designed to meet the pupils’ interests, tendencies and needs and to be suitable for their ages.”
The training courses and workshops focus on sustainable environment, astronomy and space, machine learning, web development and desktop applications.
The various modules are delivered by experts from the University of Sharjah, Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences and Technology and Sharjah Research, Technology and Innovation Park.
Pupils are awarded diplomas after they have successfully completed the course.
Nurturing talent
Highlighting the importance of the scheme, Alia Al Shamsi, an education expert with more than 37 years' experience, said it was crucial to focus on developing pupils' skills at an early age.
“Talent identification is new to us and is still not a high priority in most of our schools, where we are quick to identify weaknesses rather than strengths, like ‘this pupil is bad in maths or is struggling in his writing’,” the education control officer with Sharjah Private Education Authority told The National.
She said some teachers needed help with talent identification and development.
“Teachers overwhelmed with tasks and focused on finishing the syllabus books are unlikely to spot talents,” Ms Al Shamsi said.
“That's why a comprehensive scheme with dedicated budgets must be rolled out and should focus on coaching teachers, school staff and parents on how to identify talents and to help them grow.”
She said the co-operation between the education council and universities in the emirate meant pupils were given unparalleled access to experts in cutting-edge fields.
The programme could be developed to take place during the school year, she said.
“It's also important that nurturing talents is not limited to summer break," she said. "It has to be a continuous process that will eventually give us a high-quality educational product.”
Fascinated by space
Pupils whose talents were developed during last year's programme have taken part in several competitions in the country.
They ranked first in five categories of the 2021 World Robot Olympiad (organised by the Department of Education and Knowledge in Abu Dhabi) which allows pupils aged 8 to 19 to demonstrate their creativity and problem-solving skills.
“Our talented pupils have also scooped the best engineer award in the Future Science Challenge by Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for Distinguished Academic Performance,” said Ms Buali.
Emirati 10th grader Nada Khaled, from the Applied Technology Public School in Sharjah, said she was always fascinated by space and intrigued by its physics, scope and beauty.
“I read about space and was taking a small programme about it when I heard about this initiative last year and approached them,” Nada said.
She passed the tests and the interview to join the space and astronomy programme.
“I didn’t expect I would gain this much knowledge,” she said. "I used to go five days a week during school holidays."
The pupil, 15, hopes this programme will help her to prepare to study for a degree in astronomy and space science after she graduates from high school.
Registration for next year’s programme is already under way and continues until November. Pupils looking to register can email Mawaheb@sec.shj.ae or contact 06-5045475.
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Director: Sriram Raghavan
Producer: Matchbox Pictures, Viacom18
Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Tabu, Radhika Apte, Anil Dhawan
Rating: 3.5/5
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
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Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Company profile
Company: Rent Your Wardrobe
Date started: May 2021
Founder: Mamta Arora
Based: Dubai
Sector: Clothes rental subscription
Stage: Bootstrapped, self-funded
