E-learning project to aid 50 million Arabs
WWW.MADRASA.ORG, THE GO-TO PORTAL FOR STUDENTS UP TO GRADE 12
Fifty million Arab students will benefit from a new UAE e-learning platform offering 5,000 educational videos, it was announced yesterday.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, unveiled the platform named Madrasa (school). Students all over the Arab world can view the educational videos by logging in to www.madrasa.org.
All videos for students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 have been translated into Arabic in subjects ranging from physics, to general sciences and mathematics.
“Building a better future for our region starts in the classroom and e-learning can bridge the knowledge gap in the Arab world,” Shaikh Mohammad said. “Technology can offer millions of Arab students the opportunity to develop their scientific capabilities. We aspire to provide world-class education to every Arab child.”
Shaikh Mohammad added the project contributes to improving the quality of education in the Arab world. “I call on all those who have the ability to do so to launch similar initiatives.”
The UAE yesterday launched the largest elearning platform in the Arab world which will benefit over 50 million students in the region, from Kindergarten to Grade 12.
The Madrasa (school) portal, which can be accessed on www. madrasa.org, was launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, VicePresident and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai in a ceremony held at Madinat Jumeirah. The one of a kind revolutionary initiative now gives students free access to 5,000 educational videos — which have been translated into Arabic — in subjects including physics, chemistry, biology, general sciences and mathematics.
“Building a better future for our region starts in the classroom and e-learning can bridge the knowledge gap in the Arab world,” said Shaikh Mohammad after announcing the initiative. “Technology can offer millions of Arab students the opportunity to develop their scientific capabilities. We aspire to provide world-class education to every Arab child.”
Shaikh Mohammad added that the project contributes to improving the quality of education in the Arab world. “I call on all those who have the ability to do so to launch similar initiatives.”
Inviting all Arab students to use the Madrasa platform, he said: “My message to Arab students is: Education is your future and your weapon to navigate life.” The platform is the outcome of a translation challenge announced by Shaikh Mohammad last year which called on volunteers to help translate 5,000 English videos and 11 million words of high standard academic material into Arabic.
Out of 52,000 applications that were submitted to Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives’ (MBRGI), 300 volunteers from across the Arab world were chosen to take part in Arabising the video materials for the platform.
The ceremony was attended by Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council and Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior and a number of government officials.
New competition
During the ceremony, and in the presence of hundreds of UAE school students, MBRGI also announced the launch of a large competition on the platform called 1000X1000 targeting Arab students who will be using the portal. The competition gives students a chance to enter a draw to win $1,000 (Dh3,673) for answering one question a day for 1,000 days. A total of $1 million (Dh3.7 million) will be given away in awards under the challenge. Gulf News spoke to Sarah
Al Nuaimi, project manager at MBRGI who said the platform currently provides advanced, engaging and accurate audio-visual educational materials in Arabic for students anywhere in the world.
“The main objective is for this portal to become the number one reference on the internet for all students in the region,” she said. “5,000 videos is just the beginning. We have higher ambitions and will be updating the website frequently to benefit millions of students.”
Al Nuaimi said the educational videos were selected by a specialised team of educational experts, from the Khan Academy e-library, a non-profit educational institute that provides educational videos online, in various curricula and subjects in 35 languages. She added that Madrasa is the culmination of hundreds of thousands of hours of hard work put in by translators, proofreaders, designers, technicians, and voice-over artists who volunteered for the Translation Challenge.
In the future, Madrasa will further enrich its content with new educational courses on subjects including Arabic language, computer science, engineering, programming, artificial intelligence, and space science.
The UAE yesterday announced the launch of the biggest e-learning platform in the world and in reaching this milestone, has shown how a systematic pursuit of transformational national objectives, in this case, education, learning and knowledge harvesting, can lead to path-breaking developments for global good.
Announced yesterday by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the e-learning site, www.madrasa.org, will by this year’s end, provide free online educational material to more than 50 million students in the Arab world between Kindergarten and Grade 12. The e-learning project aims to engineer a renaissance of education in the Arab world, with the knowledge portal supporting academic pursuits in physics, chemistry, biology, general sciences and mathematics, all of which are critical requirements for every country wanting to enrich its intellectual treasuries. This material is now accessible to every student in the world for free through the Madrasa website.
This outcome, towards which the UAE prepared extensive ground by the way of the translation challenge launched by the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Arabic eLearning Project in 2017, reaffirms the UAE’s role in spreading the power of education. The overwhelming response to the call for translation volunteers, from a swathe of countries including Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt, set the momentum for the birth of Madrasa and its fruition today. The importance of translating knowledge for the benefit of others has been the mainstay of progress. The exchange of ideas and information has been the driving force for the growth of civilisations and the Islamic Golden Age — which brought to the world impeccably translated works from various cultures — is a gilded chapter in history. The Arabic translation movement of the 8th-14th centuries made way for an intellectual and scientific renaissance whose advantages are being enjoyed by mankind even today. Madrasa is renewing that legacy and bringing within the reach of young Arab generations access to information that will empower them to rise to their fullest potential.
The UAE needs to be proud of this achievement as it will play a seminal role in shaping tomorrow’s generations of Arab scientists, researchers, thinkers and influencers, forces that are critical to ushering in a brighter future. As the world moves into a challenging era that calls for unconventional solutions and uncompromising innovation, what will fortify it to meet these demands is the unhindered availability of knowledge sources. The UAE is making sure this privilege is in place for the coming generations.