October 12 2020 Two UAE based School Bag Indian Award

Two UAE-based school principals were among 10 globally to have won the Indian Humanitarian Award 2020. Anubha Nijhawan, Principal of Indian Public High School, Ras Al Khaimah, and Pramod Mahajan, Director-Principal of Sharjah Indian School, were selected from over 1,200 school head teachers from India, UAE, Nepal, Bangladesh and Maldives.

Organised by the Global Talk Education Foundation, a training and assessment body under the Government of India, a jury of specialists selected these head teachers as "they found a humanitarian streak in them while going forward with their teaching and learning processes".

Progressive concepts
Pramod Mahajan said the schooling community has to constantly update "humanitarian trends". "Covid-19 has thrown additional challenges at the teaching community. So being able to implement changes effectively so that the student community can benefit in the maximum possible way is imperative."

The educator explained how the school identified students who needed motivation based on their examination performances and then aided them to bridge the gaps. "I feel every child is equally good but what they eventually turn out to be greatly depends on the kind of motivation they receive. Therefore, we have incorporated concepts like 'hole in the wall' by Sugata Mitra that throws light on the idea of minimum intervention ... so that they understand and learn on their own. It emphasises unsupervised study rather than imposing." Other progressive concept is 'school in the cloud'. This explores the impact on students by creating child-driven learning environments to be able to think critically.