Of Public Education, Nurseries and Creativity in Dubai There is nothing more gratifying to the human soul than to create something that

benefits the common good which is what we all tend to forget as we grow up to be responsible citizens.

Pablo Picasso once hinted that all children are creative; the challenge is to remain creative into adulthood. There is nothing seriously wrong with our current education system here in the UAE. Children and toddlers are brought up in one of the best preschools and nurseries in Dubai ; and everything is fine out there. When kids grow up and start attending high school, they are learning and applying their knowledge with the end goal of attaining better results in the final years. Ask anyone, who or what they want to become and almost everyone would link themselves to a profession. It is a competitive environment that we all live in today and it is ‘competition’ itself that drowns our creativity.

Every child is born creative which is what helps them to discover and understand the ways of the world through the environment that surrounds them. Daycares in Dubai along with the preschools try to keep this talent alive; but it often wears off once they get into the public education system.

Public education does its job of imparting the knowledge about the world via subjects such

as Geography and History; and teaches the general knowledge and communication skills they would need once they get out there via Mathematics, Economics and Literature. But all of this knowledge is learnt from a book which is good, as long as one is learning and applying them—unfortunately, it all ends here.

Instead of encouraging creativity in the minds of young children, they are often left thinking about how many marks one needs to achieve to keep up with the competition. Creativity basically has no value out here in such a system. The test should allow children to come up and encourage creative thinking based on new ideas or learning from the ones that already exist. This sort of a system would help children stay creative as they grow up and turn them into geniuses; ones who contribute to the common good of the city, country and its citizens rather than someone who just takes up a position and generates more money for him or herself.

There is nothing more gratifying to the human soul than to create something that benefits the common good which is what we all tend to forget as we grow up to be responsible citizens. As parents, it is wise to encourage creativity in everything pre-school kids do; so as to help them to approach their daily problems in a different way and help them gain from every daily task that they come across. This generates a different type of thinking, one that hopefully stays alive by the time the education system is done with them.