Saudi Gazette Principals of 40 schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) across the Kingdom will gather in Jeddah on Saturday for their 25th annual conference, which will witness several brainstorming sessions in their pursuit of achieving further excellence in curricular and co-curricular realms. Indian Consul General B.S. Mubarak will inaugurate the principals' conference at International Indian School-Jeddah (IISJ) Boys' Section auditorium at 9.30 a.m. Dignitaries who will address the opening session include Mohammed Raghib Qureshi, head of chancery and consul (education); Dr. Syed Hameed, chairman of the Gulf Council of CBSE Schools and principal of nternational Indian School-Jubail; Dr. S.M. Shaukat Perwez, convener of Saudi Arabian Chapter of CBSE schools and principal of International Indian School-Riyadh (IISR); and Mohammed Raziq Abdul Wahid, chairman of the managing committee of IISJ. Syed Masood Ahmed, principal of IISJ, will deliver the welcome speech. Somayya Jabarti, editor-in-chief of Saudi Gazette, will have an interactive session with the principals on the theme of the conference "Education for peace and development," at 2 p.m. on the opening day. The three-day event will have brainstorming sessions on several common issues, in addition to analyzing the overall academic progress and curricula related topics, and will come out with plans for the next academic calendar, said IISJ Principal Ahmed. Hemant Kotalwar, charge d'affaires at the Indian Embassy, Riyadh, will preside over the valedictory function of the conference on Oct. 26. He will also inaugurate the Cluster Meet -Phase II on the same day. About 900 participants along with their team mangers are expected to come from all over the Kingdom to attend the second and final phase of the meet. Muscat to host Gulf Council Meet [caption id="attachment_8756" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Syed Hameed[/caption] The annual meet of Gulf Council of CBSE schools will be held in Muscat, Oman in January, 2016, according to Dr. Syed Hameed, chairman of the Council. Smriti Irani, India's minister of Human Resource Development, is likely to attend the conference, in which several dignitaries, including Chairman of CBSE Vineet Joshi have confirmed their participation. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Syed Hameed said 150 principals of CBSE schools from all the six Gulf countries would take part in the event. The main objective of the council is to promote and encourage quality education and honor top students and principals in the Gulf. All top-performing schools in the GCC will be honored at the annual meet, he said. Speaking about the achievements after taking over the presidency, Syed Hameed said that the online fee payment facility is the major achievement. "Until the first week of last month, all CBSE schools in the Gulf had to pay fee through sending demand draft to CBSE headquarters in New Delhi and thus causing too much inconvenience and difficulties. "S.S Rawat, CBSE director of Delhi region and foreign schools, has confirmed me about the streamlining of online system from September. Apart from this, three office rooms have been allotted exclusively to look after GCC school affairs at the CBSE headquarters," he said. There are 65 CBSE schools in the United Arab Emirates and 40 in Saudi Arabia. Bahrain DPS Principal Arun Kumar Sharma will take over as the new chairman of the council, succeeding Syed Hameed. Sharma is the current secretary of the council while Prof. Aboobacker (UAE) is the treasurer. Malathi Das, principal of Ajman school, is the custodian of CBSE Gulf Council Funds. Referring to the Jeddah conference, Syed Hameed said the conference would focus the entire aspects before finalizing the calendar for next academic year. "All principals will present success stories of their schools. All innovative experiments and best teaching practices will be reviewed thoroughly at the conference," he said. Syed Hameed will preside over a session on Innovative Experiment and practices in classroom teaching (IEP) at the conference. Syed Hameed, a recipient of the National Award for Best Teacher in 2013, said teacher attrition is a major administrative challenge faced by CBSE schools. Many teachers quit in midyear due to several factors such as job insecurity, relocation and health problems of family members, and this eventually affects the academic performance of students, he said, adding that the conference will come out with concrete proposals and remedies to minimize this as much as possible. Principals to tackle most pressing issues [caption id="attachment_8758" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Sreedevi Menon[/caption] Sreedevi V. Menon, assistant director of programs at Peevees Group of Schools-KSA and principal of Jeddah's New Al Wurood International School for Girls, is pinning great hope on the silver jubilee principals' meet as it will address most pressing issues facing the CBSE schools in the Kingdom, with reviewing performance in the current year and preparing blue print for the best performance in the next academic calendar. She said that one major problem the schools are facing is how to fix the exam calendar in a way coinciding with the examinations back in India. "We are struggling to cope with and compact with the long vacations in the Gulf and the number of working days, which are less comparing with those in India. There should be a balance between exam dates and holidays so as to improve the academic performance without compromising the quality of education." Commenting the theme of the conference, Menon spoke about her group's unique achievements in this regard. "Seven students, including one girl scout, and two teachers from Peeves Group attended the 23rdWorld Scout Jamboori held in Yamaguchi, Japan. The theme of the conference was "a Spirit of Unity and world peace," and as such the principal's meet is a double bonanza for our school. "In July this year, what our student scouts acquired from the spirit of unity and message of peace, is now being rejuvenated by our principals. About 70 students from our group participated in the Bharat Scouts Camp held in Kerala's Munnar." "A total of 35 student scouts appeared for Rajya Puraskar award after sitting for practical and written exams and some of them are certain to winning the award. The winners will compete for Rashtrapathi Puraskar, the top scouts honor in India." She underscored that students shall be given right avenue at right time in the right spirit. "In the digital world, making parents aware and show them the way to guide their children in choosing career-based courses on the basis of their aptitude is of paramount importance. More college readiness programs shall also be initiated," she said. There are 5,500 students at Peevees Group, an umbrella body of three major schools – New Al-Wurood Jeddah, Al Yasmin International School-Riyadh and and Al-Khozama International School, Dammam. Education is machine for change [caption id="attachment_8759" align="aligncenter" width="220"] Mohammad Shaffe[/caption] Principal of International Indian School-Dammam (IISD) E.K. Mohammad Shaffe said the theme of the principal's conference "Education for peace and development" is highly relevant and progressive. "Education is always for development. Peace is an issue facing challenges both in India and world as a whole, and in this scenario, education should be used as a machine for change to have positive impact in children and enable them to contributing to the betterment of society and country," he said while expressing concerns over the attempts for aberration in the holistic nature of education. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Shaffe underlined the need for tapping the advantages of technology to the maximum for teaching and learning. "Parents and teachers have to play a bigger role in enabling children to tap the positive elements of technology and ward off its demerits. There should be a control of technology, and students should not be slaves but masters of technology," he said while emphasizing that parents should be more vigilant in this respect. "The Jeddah conference and Cluster Meet will be a milestone in developing both the intellectual and physical competitiveness of our students. The meet will share best academic and non-academic practices across schools, in addition to developing students' talents in more job and business oriented fields such as entrepreneurship. Matters such as academic issues, effective functioning of schools, CBSE related issues, curricular matters, and broad outline for competitive exams will be reviewed thoroughly at the meet," he said. Shaffe also underlined the need for taking advantage of online coaching. "It has been proved that if the Gulf students get one year's coaching, they can perform much better than students in India," he said, adding that they are supporting some private agencies that are taking initiative to start coaching classes in Dammam and Jubail. Shaffe heads the world's largest Indian school with 18,750 students. IISD tops among 14,500 CBSE schools across India and 21 other countries. "I am praying daily to God to have a peaceful, incident free and smooth academic day," he said, adding that the school maintains high standards in education, infrastructure facilities and teaching aids as well. Togetherness is the core of the conference [caption id="attachment_8760" align="aligncenter" width="296"] Shaukat Perwez[/caption] The principal of International Indian School-Riyadh (IISR), Dr. S.M. Shaukat Perwez, is the convener of the Saudi Arabian Chapter of 40 Indian and international schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in Saudi Arabia. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Perwez said togetherness was the core principle of the conference. "I am very keen to further strengthen this spirit and there have been more tangible results for this during my tenure. We are determined to hold fast to unity and team work to achieve the goal of preparing our younger generation to cope with the potential challenges in the digital world," he said. "Our ultimate goal is achieving holistic development of students. In the backdrop of this, we sit together to review and discuss a host of matters, including necessary changes in curriculum, teaching methodology, analyzing the best practices and experiments of each school and the like," he said. According to Perwez, who is a seasoned academic with a firm conviction to deal with the issues pertaining to discipline and academic standards, the major challenge Indian expatriate students face is the lack of opportunities to expose their talent and academic excellence in competitive examinations while comparing to their counterparts in India. We are doing a lot of things to tackle this challenge," he said while drawing attention to a big initiative to bring in some reputable agencies that are engaged in providing the National Institute of Technology admission oriented training from Kota in the northern state of Rajasthan to provide the best possible training for competitive exams. Pervez also underlined the need to enable students to keep pace with the latest developments in the digital world. Four major community schools have embarked on this big drive with a wide variety of activities, he said, adding that intensifying awareness among students about preserving environment will be another highlight of the conference. — SG
