Imran Mojib, Special Correspondent

To develop an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset in every student, Arcadia’s secondary school in Dubai is all set to nationally recognise an entrepreneurial programme with the help of one of the top American private school. Arcadia Education has formed a partnership with Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (SCH) to achieve this.

The programme prioritises the development of four key traits that comprise the entrepreneurial mindset – opportunity seeking, creative problem solving, resiliency and resourcefulness. Equipped with this mindset, students take on interesting challenges that connect with their passions and graduate with a competitive advantage.

The Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) is one of the Springside Chesnut Hill’s signature programmes and is committed to developing an entrepreneurial mindset and skillset in every student over the course of their academic journey. To instill this mindset, CEL is integrated into the Pre-K -12 school experience and the curriculum is embedded into students’ schedules.

Ed Glassman, SCH Executive Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership, said, “Our faculty have spent many years carefully crafting and refining a sequence of instruction that delivers a powerful product and impacts every student.”

That curriculum first caught the attention of Arcadia’s CEO Navin Valrani when he was a graduate student in the University of Pennsylvania’s Educational Entrepreneurship programme and visited the site of SCH’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership - a hub of creativity, problem-solving, and prototyping.

Graham Beale, Principal, said, “Entrepreneurship has always been a core theme at Arcadia and our partnership with CEL takes our curriculum offering to an exciting level in our secondary school. This partnership will give our students the necessary skills to pursue their ambitions across a wide variety of career choices.”

The roadmap for the partnership between SCH and Arcadia includes curriculum guides, staff descriptions, equipment that may be necessary to execute and maintain the programme, and professional development for CEL faculty.