Partnership to further boost the students and teachers’ digital literacy and expertise
UAE, May 26, 2014 – Qatar International School, one of the pioneering British schools in Qatar, and ICDL GCC Foundation, an organization that promotes digital skills and cyber safety across the Gulf region and Iraq, have signed an annual accreditation agreement aimed at implementing the requirements and standards of the ICDL certification program at the academic institution. Under the terms of agreement, the Doha-based school will now be able to administer examinations to students and teachers who want to take up the ICDL Certification.
Robert Dunn, Head of ICT and Computer Science at the secondary school, Qatar International School, said: “The partnership will enable us to contribute to Qatar’s transformation into a genuine digital society. We fully support the empowerment of our students and teachers through a globally recognized certification, which will be useful in their current learning journey and future college lives. This also complements our school’s own mission of preparing our students to be highly productive members of society. ”
“We strongly encourage our entire community to take advantage of this opportunity. To our students, having an ICDL certificate gives you unrivaled opportunities because you will learn more about the emerging markets, latest technologies and cyber threats. Our teachers will also benefit greatly from this program as an ICDL certificate means your knowledge and skills are up to date and at par with the rest of the world,” he added.
Students and teachers from Qatar International School will benefit from the updated and flexible structure of international Information and Communications Technology (ICT) certification program of ICDL. Under the revised structure, three additional modules – IT Security, Project Planning, and Online Collaboration – have been added to the initial seven modules to further bolster the digital knowledge and efficiency of the students and teachers.
Jamil Ezzo, Director General of ICDL GCC Foundation, said: “Our collaboration with Qatar International School reflects our focus on academic institutions as ideal platforms for nurturing computer literacy from the formative years. We are happy to be working closely with the school and we look forward to this fruitful partnership as we hope to collaborate with more academic institutions in the future”.
“With the new ICDL profile, both students and teachers from the school can customize their own program to ensure that they gain the digital literacy and expertise they need, including dealing with potential cyber threat. They may combine any of the modules to create their own individual ICDL Profile. They will definitely gain up-to-date knowledge and skills which are validated by a test, from our 13 available modules,” Ezzo added.
In addition, the new ICDL Profile has three different levels of digital proficiency and certifications. The Base Profile offers four essential pre-set modules, while the Standard Profile contains all four Base modules plus three additional modules selected from a list of five modules. The Expert Profile, meanwhile, provides greater choice in the subject areas that can be certified through the ICDL program. ICDL’s more flexible structure was implemented in consultation with computer users, subject matter experts, and computer professionals from all over the world.