Forming the base of future leaders

Why not prepare them today for what they are going to need tomorrow. Doing so, however, would require a deviation from the orthodox extra-curricular approaches. The Next Generation (TNG) school did exactly that.
Keen on inculcating the leadership qualities in their students from the very early age, the school recently organised its third Youth Leadership Programme (YLP), this time spanning over a week with students from six schools participating in it.
Rashid Nizam, community welfare attaché at Pakistan embassy, inaugurated the event that started at the TNG Wakrah campus and concluded with a grand closing event closing at the TNG Ain Khalid campus on March 23. Each day’s event was modelled on a different theme, providing students an opportunity to perform at their best on different topics.
“The idea behind TNG is to produce leaders. Our philosophy is to inculcate leadership qualities in our youth from now. Such programmes are part of the effort to introduce leadership skills to our students and help them experience them,” Riyaz Bakali, Director TNG, tells Community at the closing ceremony of the event.
Bakali takes inspiration for the leadership programme from his personal life experiences. And he would not want to see the students in his school realising the same when they grow up.  
“I started learning what are called soft skills when I stepped into professional life and I thought it was too late then. So I believe this learning has to start from the beginning of our academic life. At the very early age, we should endeavour to acquire communication, problem solving and decision-making skills,” explains Bakali.
Within the classrooms at TNG, he says, they give their students leadership learning skills. They make sure that when the students are in the classroom, they practice the leadership skills through all components such as listening, reading, writing and speaking.
And they do it through, what Bakali says, is the “teach-explain-discuss” approach. This approach gives students the best “recall ratio”. Equal emphasis is laid on the critical thinking approach in their classrooms.
“The programme has evolved from when it first started as a one-day programme. It was a whole week-long programme this year where even the kindergarten children participated. They of course learned the same skills but through different approaches, such as tableau,” says Bakali.
This year they also brought in students from other schools. The purpose, he explains, was to teach the TNG students how to give, not just receive.
“You must have noticed during the award ceremony there was not a single student from TNG getting award. Do you think they are less brilliant? They are not. But we are teaching them how to give, how to receive the guests and how to make them comfortable. All this is part of leadership learning,” says the TNG director.
Students are involved in the execution of the YLP. They wrote their own scripts for different activities. “And the way it is going, I am sure in a couple of years’ time, our students would also be able to contribute in the planning part of the programme as well,” hopes Bakali.
The six-day celebration of leadership skills started with the preparatory school students receiving an Islamic presentation by a renowned Islamic scholar Rayan Fawzi Arab on the topic, ‘Awaken the leader in you.’  
Students from Year V to 1X had an excursion trip on March 19 to the “Flower Each Spring” camp at Al Khor organised by the Friends of the Environment Centre. The purpose of the camp was to bring students closer to the nature and lead discussions on different topics.
Doha British School, Pearl School, Olive International School, Global Academy, Newton British Academy, Newton International school, Iqra School of Girls and The Next Generation School participated in the YLP programme with enthusiasm and positive spirit.
The theme ‘Wiz Kids’ for Year I and II students put them through different sessions of challenging exercises. In the ‘Pandora’s Box’ round, for instance, they had to pick an object from the box and express their thoughts about the object.
‘Wonders of the World’ involved video clips of different places from around the world and the participants had to guess and talk about the place in the picture. To test the participants on their imaginative skills, hypothetical questions were asked in the last round to which students responded amusingly.
In a session on creative drawing, the students used their artistic skills to sketch a drawing on the theme of ‘My Family.’ Testing students on their mathematical skills, a game ‘Mathletics’ was thrown at the participants from different schools divided into four teams. Topics of this game were based on four basic operations involving three digits, rounding numbers, word problems and shapes.
Year V and VI students participated in the game of ‘House of Words,’ which consisted of pictionary, spelling bee, anagrams and audio visual rounds.
The finale segment of the week came to an end with the TNG Potpourri game, based on debates, extempore and general knowledge quiz, organised for years VII, VIII and IX on March 23. Newton International School was invited to participate in this segment.
The topics given to the students, 15 minute before every round, were as diverse as challenging as ‘Leaders are made or born’, ‘Books or e-books’ and ‘Is homework necessary.’
Certificates of appreciation were presented to all team members by the TNG CEO Shagufta Bakali, who thanked and congratulated the schools for an outstanding performance.
She said, “TNG organises Youth Leadership Programme every year and this is the third time that we have set up this platform. It is good to see schools in Qatar willing to participate in such events where students can demonstrate their intellectual and leadership skills.”