Dubai: “Support staff are the backbone of our school,” say Jumeirah College Year 13 students Pranav Lalwani and Aritra Ganti.
While making such an acknowledgement is one thing, the duo wanted to do something for them in return as a token of gratitude.
And what better way than to empower them with tech skills?
“The idea drew inspiration from an existing programme at Jumeirah College that taught support staff English. Aritra and I volunteered in that programme for two terms and really enjoyed teaching the staff. They had some amazing stories and were super fun to be around. They loved learning and were competitive when it came to games, and I often found myself sharing the same spirit, Lalwani told Gulf News.
Subsequently, he and Ganti came up with the idea of providing a financial literacy session for the support staff.
“However, that idea was quickly turned down due to the sensitivity surrounding the topic. At this point, the head of operations at Jumeirah College approached us with the idea of tech literacy, as this was a key skill that she noticed the support staff were missing,” explained Ganti.
The two students then worked with their mentor and computer science teacher, Dela Cruz, to brainstorm a suitable curriculum.
“After discussing the idea with our mentor and the school’s Head of Operations we first drafted a proposal to get approval from the senior leadership team. This proposal included the topics we wanted to cover and tentative timeframes. With the plan in mind, we then drafted an introductory presentation that explained what our project was about and how we planned on implementing it. We decided to cover topics such as G-suite, hardware literacy, cybersecurity and career building skills,” said Lalwani.
Two categories
However, fllowing the first session, they realised that there was a skill disparity among the support staff, so they split them into two groups: Beginner and advanced.
“Doing so allowed us to refine our plan, with specific skills catered to each skill level. With the beginner group, we started off with more basic technical skills like understanding the different parts of a computer, such as the monitor and keyboard. We then spent the majority of our time focusing on typing, especially with capital letters and special characters. Once the support staff developed greater fluency with typing, we taught them how to create and save a Word document, use Google to search for images, and copy and paste these images into the document,” explained Ganti.
“With the advanced group, we covered the copy-paste aspects quickly and moved on to creating email IDs for all of them and diving deeper into some of the features of Word. Additionally, with both groups we covered cybersecurity topics such as creating a strong password, which went hand in hand with creating emails and typing skills. Starting this term, we hope to dive deeper into G-suite, with skills such as Google Sheets and data entry, plus we hope to place a greater emphasis on cybersecurity and identifying potential threats and how to stop them,” added Lalwani.
According to the duo, these aspects of tech literacy are important because they provide the support staff with the foundational skills needed to navigate and utilise technology effectively. By equipping them with knowledge of basic computer components, typing skills, document creation, email usage, and cybersecurity, the programme empowers staff to perform tasks more efficiently and independently, they said.
The idea was to enhance their professional capabilities and also open up opportunities for them to take on more administrative and technical roles within the school or in future employment.
“Additionally, understanding cybersecurity is crucial for protecting personal and organisational information in an increasingly digital world. Overall, these skills help bridge the digital divide and contribute to the personal and professional growth of the support staff, ultimately fostering a more inclusive and technologically capable school community,” said Lalwani.
The success of their effort has motivated them to expand to more schools.
“The goal from here is to impact as many people as possible. Through GEMS Education, we’ve got a great network of schools that we can work with in order to grow our project. This will allow us to impact and upskill a larger number of people,” Ganti added.
Asked if the initiative was also motivated by the need to put something on their university applications. “We believe that support staff are just as vital as teachers or any other team member. Our goal was to give back in a meaningful way through something we care about and are passionate about. Without the support staff, our school wouldn’t function as smoothly – they create an environment where learning can take place. Not only was this about giving back, but we also noticed an opportunity with regards to upskilling the support staff in terms of technology,” they said.
Grateful staff
The support staff are extermely grateful. "The teaching style was very helpful and now I have learnt so much about computers and my typing skills have improved," said one of them Anita.
The teaching techniques used in the ICT lessons are very effective. The teaching style is engaging and the content matter very useful," said another support staff Afshan.
