Elementary education: Civitas school to tap on students’ passion

The facility will be launched in August but an open house was held on Monday

KARACHI: Located in the serene environs of Old Clifton is Civitas, an elementary school project that aims to cater to students from nursery to class six.

The project has been initiated by Nadeem Ghani, the school’s dean and founder as well as the brains behind Nixor College, and Almas Riaz, the project director. The educational facility will be formally launched in August but the management held an open house on Monday for prospective students, parents and academicians.

Addressing the session, Ghani highlighted Civitas’ mission and spoke with some passion on the need to develop students with the skills to become independent, life-long learners. “At Civitas, we’ll encourage children to interact with both technology and the natural environment,” he said. “We’ll be aiming to balance tradition and innovation and extend the classroom to include the outdoors.”

Riaz focused more on giving practical examples of the teaching methods employed at Civitas. “We want to instil love for each subject and take out the fear factor,” she said. “For example, maths will not be taught as maths, but as love for numbers. Children respond more enthusiastically to things they are passionate about, and we want to inculcate that passion.”

An overview of the programme of study revealed an interesting mixture of both traditional and modern subjects. Along with conventional subjects, such as English and mathematics among others, areas as diverse as ceramics, woodwork, music, gardening and creative play will be taught as well.

The classrooms also present a combination of the traditional and the modern, with smart boards and tablet PCs at each child’s disposal. In addition, the school houses a library, a woodwork studio, a music room, an organic vegetable garden, and discovery rooms for science, geography and other subjects.

As Riaz was keen to point out, the focus at Civitas will be to foster curiosity among children and to encourage them to explore solutions instead of waiting for teachers to provide them the answers. “Too often we see children being expected to cram facts and learn by rote,” said Riaz. “That is the culture we are aiming to change.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th, 2015.