Ireland eyes tie-up to ‘revolutionise’ Qatar education

Ireland is ready to share its expertise with Qatar in creating modern, high-tech and innovative classrooms through its ‘Excited – the Digital Learning Movement,’ an Irish Minister told Gulf Times.

Ciaran Cannon, Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with special responsibility for the Diaspora and International Development, founded ‘Excited’ – a digital learning initiative led by pioneering teachers in Irish schools and communities who use technology to enhance teaching and make learning more interesting among students.“We did a lot of research and we developed a whole new curriculum for computer science for primary and post primary, and again we’re more than happy to share that,” the Minister said. Cannon, who visiting Qatar recently, is eyeing a collaboration between Ireland’s Department of Education and Qatar’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education in the near future to introduce “such revolution” in schools in the country.As Ireland's Education Minister from 2011 to 2014 and a strong advocate of the use of technology in education, Cannon worked closely with teachers and industry leaders to introduce computer science as a subject in Irish schools.In September this year, he revealed that computer science will be taught in both primary and post primary nationwide (in Ireland) for the first time.Computer science will be a critical skill in the future especially in a world that is becoming increasingly technologically advance, according to Cannon. “Every young child when they start school at five years of age they’ll immediately be learning computational thinking, they’ll be developing all these skills they need to have in the 21st century,” he added. “That’s where we were, we advocated for that and thankfully we have been successful in doing so.”“It is critically important that every child both in Ireland and Qatar and across the world has the requisite digital skills to take part in the digital revolution that is going on,” the Minister said. “What I am sure is that there is similar innovation going on here in Qatar in terms of education opportunities as well.”In the past, he said there had been a perception that the only reason people will require computational skills is they are going to the Information and Communication Technology industry.The Minister stressed that it would be a huge advantage for people to have such skills irrespective of the career they take - be it medicine, engineering, and journalism, among others.“These are the skills that people will be needing and that is why we are excited to push for it,” he said.“When you have two countries focusing on technology and innovation, which are key parts of their economies in the future, there will be a lot of those kind of synergies that we can establish in the future as well,” Cannon added.He said they also recently launched ‘Creative Ireland’ aimed at developing Irish children’s creative skills, including in arts and music.“It will be interesting to explore the opportunities for cultural exchanges between our two countries, we have our river dance, which is popular globally,” the Minister added.