Dubai: GEMS Education has announced a new strategic partnership that would provide world class international career and higher educational counselling for students, it has been announced.
The strategic partnership comes with Intelligent Partners, the leading ‘study abroad’ and university consultancy in the Middle East, and will help students identify their future careers and plan their study path accordingly.
GEMS schools will continue to offer services and counselling as they have done in the past, but now with a centralised resource, the GEMS team will be able to enhance these offerings, they said.
The partnership will bring together the best practice from GEMS schools in the UAE, and provide more value to the college and university selection process through access to leading international university partnerships and admissions.
Both GEMS and non-GEMS students will benefit from a wide range of comprehensive services which will support the four pillars of student counselling: career assessment, study abroad options, student standardised assessment, and financial aid and scholarships.
Dino Varkey, chief executive officer, GEMS Education, said given the more complex applications and counselling needs for the multi-cultural, multi-lingual student population, it was clear that a new model was needed.
“This strategic partnership will help ease the burden of this complexity and deliver a world-class total educational solution to ensure that every GEMS student will be able to achieve their dreams for higher education at leading universities,” added Varkey.
The enhanced career assessment services will start in the early years of secondary education. Students will have access to productive one-on-one counselling and focused psychometric testing based on personality type, learning style and leading modes of intelligence, which will enable them to identify their future careers and plan their study path accordingly. On the study abroad opportunities, services will include the building of relationships with universities worldwide, thereby opening the doors for students to apply with confidence, complete application processing and support documentation including references and essays as well as organisation of travel and visa arrangements.
Realising the financial implications of studying locally or abroad, the partnership will set up a scholarship and financial aid subsidiary which will ensure that deserving students are not limited by economic hardships from pursuing their studies in their chosen institution of higher education.
