Aiming to make education more innovative and impactful in the country, Qatar Foundation (QF) plans to promote novel and unique ideas through its initiative, Qatar Spotlight, a senior official told Gulf Times Tuesday.
“We have partnered with HundrEd, a non-profit organisation to deliver an event and experience to all the educators in Qatar," explained Maryam Hassan al-Hajri, director of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives Department under Pre University Education, QF.
"We ask our educators to come up with innovations and also participate with their creative ideas so that we can share them with other educators in the country to make education more innovative and impactful,” she said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Qatar Spotlight event to celebrate the winners of the first round of the programme, al-Hajri said: “It is a unique way to get all the educators around the world to share their innovations. But we wanted to do a special spotlight in Qatar for Qatari schools. Here we are celebrating 10 winning innovations. We make a video of the innovation and then we upload it online so that all the educators can get access to it and can implement it in their schools and classrooms and learn from each other.”
Al-Hajri noted that the projects have participation from schools, educational institutions and organisations that promote and influence education like Qatar National Library, Qatar Museums among others.
She explained: “The projects have to be noble ideas and at the same time impactful for the students. We are doing a second round of Qatar Spotlight in the next two years, to provide opportunities for people to come up with new ideas, and document and share them. They can make a video and submit them for Qatar Spotlight recognition. We invite all educators in Qatar both private and public schools as well as other institutions that promote education to participate in the initiative and share their innovations.
“The innovations have to be impactful and creative as the world is changing rapidly. There is the need to innovate in the classrooms to engage the students and inspire them so that they become lifelong learners and learning becomes an enjoyable process.
“QF supports and provides assistance for the projects and upload high quality videos. It will feature the innovator and will be online for a very long time so that people can see and learn from it. We want the innovative educators to be celebrated so that it will encourage all others to think differently and come out with great ideas,” she highlighted.
“We want to generate more data through these projects so that we can inform researchers and based on their findings we can develop more initiatives maximising the impact of the innovations. This is what we are focusing on. We want to do anything that is impactful, educational for students and the new generations. Those who can contribute in this endeavour can collaborate with us,” added, al-Hajri.
Maryam Hassan al-Hajri
