Teach Middle East Podcast
Welcome to the Teach Middle East Podcast, the ultimate audio hub where educators find inspiration, share innovative ideas, and grow together! Brought to you by Moftah Publishing—the minds behind the premier Teach Middle East Magazine—this podcast is your gateway to the latest research-based practices, cutting-edge classroom strategies, and the heartwarming stories of educators from the Middle East and around the globe.
As the only podcast that interviews school leaders from across the Middle East and beyond, we offer unparalleled insights into the challenges and successes that shape educational landscapes in diverse settings. Join us as we dive deep into the fascinating world of education, where every episode promises a treasure trove of insights designed to connect, develop, and empower the brilliant minds shaping our future. Whether you’re seeking fresh perspectives, practical tips, or a dose of inspiration, the Teach Middle East Podcast is your must-listen resource. Tune in and transform the way you teach!
Teach Middle East Podcast
Global Lessons from Dr. Saima Rana on Inclusivity, Leadership and Giving
Dr Saima Rana, CEO and Principal of GEMS World Academy, Dubai, and Deputy CEO of GEMS Education Global, shares her remarkable journey from a spirited upbringing in West London to leading global educational initiatives. Rooted in values from her close-knit, community-focused family, Dr. Saima reflects on how her passion for the arts and a practical career in economics led her to transform Westminster Academy, igniting hope and success for its students.
Dr. Saima’s commitment to inclusive education and international philanthropy shines through her work at GEMS World Academy, a school community of over 120 nationalities. Her efforts with the Shehnaz Foundation in Pakistan—creating schools, supporting orphanages, and empowering women leaders—highlight her dedication to global citizenship. She also candidly discusses the barriers facing women in educational leadership and advocates for mentorship and community support. Dr. Saima’s story is a powerful call to action for inclusivity and empowerment.
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Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome back to the Teach Middle East podcast, or welcome if this is your first time listening. My name is Lisa Grace and it is my pleasure to have you listening to us today On our podcast. Today we have Dr Saima Rana. She is the CEO and Principal of GEMS World Academy, dubai, but not only that, she's also the Deputy CEO of GEMS Education Global. Now she is a formidable woman and a leader in the space, so we are excited to have her on the podcast. Welcome, dr Saima.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, lisa. It is my absolute pleasure to join you. I've been very excited about meeting with you and speaking to you this afternoon. Thank you, you are most welcome.
Speaker 2:I want to start straight in because I want to ask the questions everyone wonders but never have the opportunity to ask. Take me back to Little Saima. Where did you grow up? What was life like for Little Saima?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, you are taking me back. So I grew up in London. I am born and bred in London, in West London, so I was born in Hillingdon and I've lived in the borough of Ealing all my life. So I grew up in a beautiful, loving, caring family with three siblings, so there were four of us growing up. I have an elder sister and two younger brothers and very hardworking, humble, amazing role model parents Mother was a teacher and then a housewife, and father a businessman worked incredibly hard to give us a great life, a great childhood, and we were a family that was very religious in terms of our morals and our values, a Muslim family, background from India, pakistan, saudi Arabia and England, but a family that was very much aware of our community and about people and relationships, and my parents were incredibly caring people. If people around them in the sort of late 80s didn't have much, my parents were the first to be approached and to support. So I grew up in a very loving family.
Speaker 3:We used to laugh to our parents that we had an open door policy. My mother used to say an open door policy Anybody can arrive to our home and share our meal, what little or lot we had. We never fussed about food or things. It was there for everybody, it wasn't just for us siblings. So we grew up with this mentality of sharing and caring and many nights me and my siblings spent sleeping on the floor in our family home because visitors arrived without notice and needed a bed. And of course, in our family and in our culture the visitors would get the bed and get the best of what we had and we'd end up sleeping on the floor together. But it was such a joyous, happy, a real sort of a life full of experiences and full of laughter and love Brilliant.
Speaker 2:What was school like for you? Where did you go to school?
Speaker 3:So I went to school in the borough of Ealing. I went to state school and I'm very proud that I am a student of state school and the state education system in the United Kingdom. I went to a state grammar school for secondary School was just a phenomenal place for me. I loved and still do love people, love friends, very much enjoyed learning. I could be mischievous at school, not to say that I wasn't your sort of oh gosh I hope my students don't hear this but I wasn't your sort of perfect, you know, a-star student. I was the mischievous, always wanted to inquire and be inquisitive student with lots of friends, but always high performing. So I was your A-star student because academics were important to me and I came from a family where they were important, but always high performing. So I was your A-star student because academics were important to me and I came from a family where they were important. But I did enjoy my experience and this is something that's really important to me for my children here is that you must enjoy the experience of school because they're your best years. You learn how to make friends, you learn how to have a heartbreak. You learn how to fall out of friendships and then have to deal with them, have to be part of a sporting elite team or be part of athletics and just enjoy the experiences. Of course, success and academics and outcomes are incredibly important, but they're not more important than the experiences of being young, being carefree, enjoying company, understanding who you want to be when you're older. Perhaps you end up making friends with the types of people that will carry you through your school years and sometimes you won't, so those things were very important for me personally.
Speaker 3:At school. My teachers were very important to me. At school, I loved my teachers. They gave me a lot of time. In particular, I spent a lot of time in the gym and with the sports teachers. I was hockey captain. I was netball captain. I was a cross country runner. I was 200 and 100 meter runner. I was very much into sports. I loved it. It just I loved being competitive. I love winning statistically on data and performance, but I also love being part of a team and being hockey captain. Netball captain gave me that sort of place within my school peers that I was leading a team, but it was very much a sport that was about caring and looking after other people.
Speaker 3:I loved the expressive arts. I loved singing and dancing. I loved art and I really wanted to study art at university, but my parents felt that wasn't something that would help me get into a career with a paid job when I left university and they would say follow those sporting and expressive art dreams and passions of yours as a hobby if you like, and that's unfortunately. That was something that I had to accept and I went on to study economics, business, mathematics, which I loved as well. I absolutely loved those subjects and so I went off to study at Nottingham University and just thoroughly enjoyed my time.
Speaker 3:For me it was leaving London was a big deal. For me. Going to Nottingham it was something that for me it was like leaving the country. At that time I was part of a very loving family, immediate family, but also an extended family of about 140, 150 relatives. So going off to Nottingham on my own, culturally it was very different and I found it challenging. In the first couple of days I wasn't used to Nottingham and I remember so vividly looking at the pavement at one point and thinking this is so different from the pavement in London and I don't know why. But that was something that really struck me, that I'm in a different place, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Nottingham, made so many friends, got to know so many people from different walks of life and I just loved it. I absolutely loved it.
Speaker 3:I loved education so much that I continued with education when I came back to London after university and just the thought of being in an office and being an office worker wasn't something I wanted to do and at that time I was getting some great offers from consultancy companies London Stock Exchange but it was just something I didn't want to do. I wanted to do something different. It was just extraordinary. I ended up in my teacher training program at Roehampton and the most amazing dean in Maryland, wholeness and phenomenal lady for me, a role model and an enormous personality, female role model for me and just ended up working and working really hard in schools and just fell in love and I'll never forget that first lesson I took. I walked in and I just fell in love with teaching with children, with the classroom environment, and I never looked back throughout my years of studying or working in schools. I've absolutely loved being in school.
Speaker 3:So where did you teach? So I taught in an interesting constituency in West London called Hounslow and at that time when I started my teaching practice. I taught in Hounslow and Brentford, and Brentford School for Girls was incredibly different from Hounslow Manor. In Hounslow Manor we had a huge white working class and Gypsy Roma traveller community at that time and it was just an eye-opener Culturally. I lived in Ealing all my life in West London but it was a completely different community that we were serving Really tough community. But it was extraordinary and I made some great progress with the students and the children that I was teaching then. I'm still in touch with them, would you believe it, and they have their own businesses now and they have their own sort of careers, which is amazing and I'm very proud of them. And I taught in Brentford, which is a school for girls Amazing school really, very different, very preppy, actually very lovely, but both state schools.
Speaker 3:I then went on to take a full-time role at Hounslow Manor. I was a classroom teacher. Within the sort of first year I became head of department. I've always loved working, lisa. I've always loved proving more to myself than anyone else I can make a difference. I've always been about change and impact and sometimes it can be misconstrued, I think, in terms of being competitive or really ambitious and ruthlessly ambitious. But it's not really about that. My motivation is genuinely to make change and impact and make better things that I can see that perhaps are in my control.
Speaker 3:So, very quickly promoted to head of department of the business economics, mathematics department, enjoyed myself for about six years there, left that school as a senior leader and that inquisitive part of me never left me, as I had it as a child and as a grown up, as a young adult. It still remained with me and I just couldn't understand the state sector, the sort of private sector, and how the education piece works in the UK with the government and the funding, and why some schools get more money than others, and I just wanted to understand that better. So what better to go and work for the local government? So I took on a post with Cambridge Education, mott MacDonald, who was working for the Department for Education under the Labour government for building schools for the future, and I worked there for six years as a lead consultant for education technology and infrastructure. And boy did I enjoy myself. It was just such an amazing experience and opportunity to help rebuild, reconstruct and redesign Victorian buildings as well as new buildings in the sort of area of King's Cross, islington, all the way up to Holloway and just including all that area where we had about 40 schools, and it was just such an extraordinary experience to develop. I learned about design, I learned about architecture, school architecture. I learned about community needs and aspirations and how building and design and colours can make aspirations come to life. It was just an extraordinary time and I enjoyed that for about six years.
Speaker 3:I then went on to take on a post at a school called Westminster Academy, which is based in the fifth most deprived constituency in England but surrounded by the most expensive areas of England, so it was a school that was in special measures. It was a very challenging time for the school, incredibly difficult. So I joined that school as a senior leader to support the head teacher for two years. I said I would come in and help us turn the school around. It was a team of us. Four of us were going to go to turn the school around and we did.
Speaker 3:Within the first 12 to 18 months it became outstanding and we were very, very happy. We were over the moon with what we were able to do. It was a lot of hard work, lisa. We were literally I remember I was literally on my knees doing this work. It was long hours and it wasn't just about hard work in terms of having to make things happen. It was about actually inspiring communities in changing the culture, and as cultural change is incredibly difficult. You can modify buildings, you can modify schemes of work and so on, but to make people genuinely believe that this can be done, it is possible, there's no miracle here. We've just got to really believe and get on with the job and work hard and practice, practice, practice. So your performance is outstanding.
Speaker 3:We did that with the children, and the children were from two very high profile estates. There was gang warfare, there was drugs, there was violence, there was knife crime. And to be working in that kind of melting pot with children from refugee communities as well. So it was a real melting pot, but it was extraordinary. It was an extraordinary school and an extraordinary community and it still is sponsored by the Dangor family and their sort of genealogy was very much as refugees into the United Kingdom as well.
Speaker 3:So that whole sort of connection of the heritage, of why this school was sponsored by the Dangor family, who were Jewish refugees from Baghdad many years ago and wanted to give back, would become incredibly successful in the United Kingdom, wanted to give back to a community that they lived in through the means of a single sponsored academy, the Westminster Academy. It was just extraordinary and it was like. I have such fond memories of that time. And after the two years I was asked to become associate principal and then after that, I think it took another year and I was asked to become principal of that school and I just felt so blessed. You know, the children there were phenomenal. They came from such difficult backgrounds and they were my role models. They inspired me, they challenged me, they made me want to do better for the school, but they also made me want to do a lot more good for the world, I mean they were just extraordinary children.
Speaker 2:So how did you turn? I know you had a team with you, but how did you turn that school around in 18 months? And the reason I ask is I worked in challenging schools in Enfield, in Haringey in Walthamstow. That type of turnaround is remarkable. How did you guys do it? What did you do?
Speaker 3:So the first thing, I mean that's fascinating, lisa, and congratulations, because those areas I know are incredibly challenging and incredibly great areas, great people, incredibly challenging context. It was about the simple things like the process, the people just making sure the performance was being accounted for and was monitored, regularly monitored. So, in terms of the processes, we made sure that the schemes of work, the curriculum planning, was done to a level that in which allowed children to actually be able to progress every lesson, rather than every term or every year. You could see the progress that children were making Any one lesson. I remember in one of my first meetings with the staff, I made it very clear and people would know this, and I'm not saying they weren't necessarily doing this, but it was about saying that in every lesson, every child, regardless of starting point, must make progress, otherwise what is the value of them coming to school? We had a huge attendance problem and that was because children were coming to school and possibly thinking what's the point? I'm not really gaining anything, I'm not meeting the sort of requirements that I should be. So that was really important that not only do the children make progress, but they feel they're making progress, they understand they're making progress. So it was almost like putting in a sense of success for each child in every moment they spent at Westminster Academy. The parent who themselves were at that time it's probably no longer the case, but at that time were illiterate refugees themselves struggling with home context and just settling in making sure that they were on board by making sure they understood what was required and why the children needed to be at school. You know, lisa, this will not be unfamiliar to you, I'm sure because of the context you've worked at. We would go to the children's homes if they didn't turn up to school, knock on the door. You need to be in school. Come on, let's go to school and have like a school bus with us or an Uber, etc. We would do that. We would do that because it was important that children understood that we cared, and I think that was the most important thing.
Speaker 3:I remember Sir Professor Brighouse, who was a mentor of mine. God bless him. He would say to me that you know, simon, the biggest thing you can do is you can give children hope. And where does hope come from? Hope comes from your environment. Hope comes from the people that are around you. Hope comes from believing in children believing in people. Hope comes from feeling confident, feeling secure in where you are, and so that was a mantra I would always use with everybody Give the children the hope. Understand that.
Speaker 3:These children, lisa, but there are so many people like me, like yourself, who have contributed to society and the global platform through being amazing teachers and head teachers and senior leaders in these areas, in these challenging areas, and the biggest thing we've been able to do, I think more so than the academic success I mean we were in the top 10 schools in the United Kingdom with our outcomes and our performance measures in terms of value add but we can give them hope and we can allow them to see that there's a huge world out there and there is a space for you and a place for you in that world. You've just got to own it. You've got to look inside yourself and believe that there is a space for you and go and own it. And that was one of the things we did with the children. And as soon as we had the children on side, as soon as the children wanted to be able to make a difference for themselves, our attendance figures went on up. And, of course, if you're attending, you're in school. If you're in school and you're learning and you're progressing, automatically your results will start to go up.
Speaker 3:And we were fortunate at that time. It was very mechanical as well. We needed to get them the basics English and maths and science etc. And we were able to dissect the curricula and the criterion to be able to achieve passes and good passes and strong passes. And why we needed to be mechanical in those first couple of months was because we needed to show the children hope is great and that's what we need, but we also needed to show them that they could achieve.
Speaker 3:And once we got those results in that first year which was extraordinary and I remember that night I was in charge of curriculum assessment and data, so I would download all the results and check what's happening at midnight and then have to call my principal and say we did it. And I remember that night, before I downloaded the results, I prayed and I prayed for the cohort and said please, god, make sure they're successful, because it's really important, not for them, it was important for the community and the school. We needed to show the community in the school if you work hard and you turn up, you will get the outcomes. And once that happened it was just literally contagious. We couldn't stop it because we had proved that we could do it. This school, this community, after so many years, can do it. And suddenly it just went on and it was just contagious and we were never not successful after that brilliant.
Speaker 2:I actually like the fact that you had to go back to basics, because sometimes it's good to say, oh, we checked all the things and we did all the higher level things. But just going back to basics and being very mechanical being traditional nowadays is what they call it. Making sure you get that math in, you get that English in, you make sure that the students have that basic grounding before you add all the flowery bits on top. So I loved that. How did you then move from that school to Dubai and to GEMS? How did that transition take place?
Speaker 3:So that's really interesting. When I was in London, I was a governor of some private schools as well, and the reason why I wanted to be a governor of private schools was because I wanted to see what it was that they were doing and what could I do better for my school. So I've always been involved in charity. Lisa, my mother, was a very charitable person and my father is also, but my mother acted more so on the charitable endeavors and so I am a founder and a trustee of the Shehnaz Foundation, which is a charity named after my mother, shehnaz, and unfortunately she passed away. So the charity very much does a lot of good work in her name and we build schools. We have three aims in our charitable endeavour. The first aim is looking after children who don't have access to education across the globe, in particular girls education. They're very keen on that and we have schools across the globe, predominantly in India, pakistan, sudan, etc. Boys can attend as well, but it's predominantly for girls education. Second aim is women's empowerment Incredibly important to look after the women in the world, I think, especially those that are in some way or shape victims of violence, domestic violence, mental health issues, refugee mothers. So we very much support women who need a bit of support in terms of their own mental health, but also employability, skill sets etc. And our third aim I am religious, I'm Muslim. We build mosques and synagogues and churches and mandirs and gudwaras where there aren't any old mosques and synagogues and churches and mandirs and gudwaras where there aren't any, so that there's a place for worship for everybody where we can reach. But also we help prepare people that have passed away and if their families don't have any money to cremate or bury, we support them with that. So those are our three aims.
Speaker 3:Now I had heard of Mr Sunny Varki. Of course I'd heard of GEMS, but I had heard of Mr Sunny Varki with the Varki Foundation and the great work that his philanthropic arm takes, a huge involvement and focus on in terms of societal deprivation and support for education in particular. And when we met we talked a lot about charity etc. And he had said to me look, come and work for GEMS Education in Dubai. It's close to the countries that you support. So I go out to these countries myself and set up the schools for my charity and I do like to support my charities through my own income and in England I was getting a great income, as you would, as a head teacher in London, but of course, dubai would be able to afford me a better income, tax free, which would be able to support my charities even more. So where I was able to build a few schools in London, I can build many more being employed in a place like Dubai.
Speaker 3:That's not to say that I don't enjoy what I do and I don't. You know I absolutely love GEMS education. I'm very proud to be a member of GEMS education. I understand all the work that we do in our philanthropic arm, but it was genuinely that was what really interested me about Dubai being able to help my charity. And then when GEMS but I was still thinking about it, but when GEMS World Academy came up as a proposition, I just couldn't say no. It was a school that was a flagship school in terms of the International Baccalaureate. Was it doing as well as it could have been at that time? Possibly no. Covid was coming in. What a challenge, what an extraordinary opportunity to lead the flagship school for the GEMS education portfolio. I just couldn't say no. So here I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and GEMS World talk to me about it. What kind of a school is it?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow. So GEMS World Academy it is a dream school, honestly. It's an international baccalaureate school. We are an all-through school. We have a nursery, which is delightful. We have a PYP program, an MYP program, a career-related program and a diploma program. So we have all four programs in the school. We are a world school.
Speaker 3:We are a school with over 120 different nationalities and each nationality is a minority, and you won't find that in most schools. In most schools, you have a predominant nationality group, but you do have over 100 nationalities. It's the nature of the UAE, I believe, in particular in Dubai. But our school, every nationality is a minority. So you can imagine 120 nationalities with all nationalities 4%, 5% and that's it. Maybe 6% where there is conflict but where children have come in from conflict areas. But it's really like a mini United Nation. Everybody is different here and that just makes for such an amazing place, because nobody feels left out, because everybody's different, and so you see uniqueness in all of our children.
Speaker 3:Our children are kind and humble. They're so inquisitive, they want to challenge everything, which is a true IB learner. I believe they're global citizens in that they want to change the world, they want to do better for the world and they're incredibly academic as well. So it's a place where there is something for everybody, and the nicest thing about Jem's World Academy is that we are an inclusive school, so we do not select. The nicest thing about Gemswell Academy is that we are an inclusive school, so we do not select. If we have spaces and you want to come to our school, you are most welcome and we will look after you and, as a result, we have a real comprehensive intake, if you like, and our children are so kind to each other. Whether you are gifted and talented, special educational needs, eal, any behavioral problems, you're all included in our community.
Speaker 3:It's just so delightful, and you see it at lunchtime, you see it at break time, you see it when somebody is not doing quite so well in their trials after school. You just see the way in which children behave and their attitude. It's just extraordinary and for me, it's one of the best places on the planet. I love being at Gemsworld Academy. I love being in my office. I have windows in my office where all the children can see me and I can see them, and no matter what's happening in the world and a lot is happening, as you know, in the world today, which is not great, but the children just really lift your spirits and they make you realize that tomorrow is going to be a better day, regardless of what's happening today. So it's an exquisite place. Our teachers are second to none. They are passionate, they are caring, they know their children, they care about the children's progress.
Speaker 3:One of the things that we promise our parents when they join Gemsworld Academy or when they return to Gemsworld Academy after the summer break is that we will always keep your children safe, secure and successful. And the safety is all about ensuring that there is no sort of nasty behavior. Children will be mischievous and it's their right to be. They're of that age and they must be actually but not being sort of racist or discriminatory or horrible to someone so you hurt their heart and you hurt their feelings. That is something we don't accept. So safety is all about that. We promise that they'll be secure, and secure is all about confidence.
Speaker 3:I want my children to be confident. I want them to walk into the school and say to me Dr Rana, I didn't enjoy this lesson yesterday. Or, dr Rana, I think that sports field should be a different color. Or I think we should have a different menu for lunch. They need to have that confidence because every single child matters. Their needs, their wants, their desires, their aspirations and their hopes they all matter. Their fears matter too, because fear is a good thing, it's not a bad thing. But we want our children to express their fears so we can help them navigate and learn how to combat these fears.
Speaker 3:And then success is very important For me. The more successful you are in terms of academics, the more doors will open for you. So it's not the end sort of goal to be successful. It's just a medium or a method to have lots of options and opportunities. So I always say to children you've got to be successful is just a medium or a method to have lots of options and opportunities. So I always say to children you've got to be successful too. But you can only be successful if you are safe and secure, because without that, as you know, as adults, you're not feeling safe. If you're not feeling secure in your workplace or at home, you're very unlikely to be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because I do quite a lot of school tours. I go around, I look at different schools. If I come into GEMS World Academy, what am I likely to see?
Speaker 3:Well, you're likely to see a lot.
Speaker 3:What you're likely to feel is that you don't want to leave, but what you're likely to see and I would absolutely love to be delighted to host a visit for you, lisa, whenever you're ready what you will see is you will see this bustling community where there's just so many people everywhere, and the people are different shapes and sizes, talking about different things, and the children are cackling and they're in groups and they're either hugging or singing happy birthday to somebody, or they're wanting to find out where they can go for homework club, or they're wanting to speed off to the athletics practice.
Speaker 3:They're talking to their teachers, they're talking to parents, they're talking to the support staff. You'll see everybody in a community that is here for one reason and one reason only, and that is to make sure that our children feel safe, secure and successful. And you'll see everybody doing that, whether it's a security guard at the gate, whether it's myself standing at the door welcoming children in at the start of the day or bidding them farewell at the end of the day. It's a bustling community. There's lots of people and lots of things going on and you know there's over sort of at any one point at the start of the day or the end of the day, we have over 3,500 children approximately and parents and staff going somewhere doing something. It's very busy. It's very busy, but it's very happy.
Speaker 2:I like that. I got that nice picture. I love a humming school. When you go in you hear that hum. It's a happy hum of busy people, busy students doing and being the best they can be in that space. I love that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And, lisa, you know, one thing I've never liked is silent corridors. I've been an inspector and we would have you would see these things like there's a line in the corridor and you've got to stay on your right, or you've got to stay on your left and you've got to be absolutely quiet, silently, walking to your next lesson. I can't think of something anything worse. It's dreadful. The cackle of children laughing and telling someone what they did and just enjoying themselves in the corridors. I just love it, like you said, that humming, that buzz, that noise of children, and if I can't hear it, I think something's wrong, something's not quite right and I want to hear that noise Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. I want to turn the podcast a little bit because, based on the first half, you are extremely busy and very driven and very focused, but that can't be all there is to you, dr Sama. You have to have got a side to you that is a little bit more chilled, a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more you. What do you do when you're not sitting at that desk, when you're not in school, when you don't have to be on? What do you do to chill out?
Speaker 3:Interesting. So I swim, I walk. I love music, lisa. I love all types of music, you name it, and I just love it. I love to dance, I really love dancing. So you know, whether it's R&B, hip hop, whether it's a classical music, a bit of, you know, soka, bhangra, bollywood, you name it. I just love music and I love to dance. I don't know if others around me would say that it's a good thing that I dance, but in my head I'm a great dancer, I absolutely love it, and most of the time you'll find me even at home. If I'm getting early in the morning, I'll be dancing around. I always have music on, whether I'm working, whether I'm getting ready for work in the car. I always have music on. It really relaxes me.
Speaker 3:Love swimming, love running, love walking, love biking. I'm not a gym person. I wouldn't go to the extent to say that I don't like the word hate and I never use it, but with the gym I could use that word. I just can't be in a closed space doing something I just don't. I don't get that. But it's not for me, I do, I do.
Speaker 3:One of the things I absolutely love is being around friends. I have some really good friends. When I came to Dubai I didn't know anybody in Dubai and I've made some good friends at least five really good friends who I really enjoy spending time with, having lunch, having dinner. I love food. I love to cook, but more so I love to eat, and again, all types of food. I am a vegetarian, but I do love all types of food. I'm a really big fan of Asian food and I enjoy it. That's how I relax.
Speaker 3:It's taken me a long time to actually accept that. Well, not accept, I suppose, more so to say out loud that I love working, and I love working 24 seven. I never stopped working, and before, when I was younger, I used to feel a little embarrassed about it, like it wasn't a good thing. So sometimes, lisa, I would say to people if I was working and say what are you doing? Oh, I'm just relaxing. But I wouldn't let them know I was working because I used to feel like they mustn't think I'm working, because it just doesn't look good. But now I'm of an age, it's just like I love it. I just love working. So that is something that I enjoy doing. I always find something to do. Even if it's all done, there's always something to do.
Speaker 2:Let the record show that Dr Salma likes Soka. Who are you listening to?
Speaker 3:Because I'm like that. One threw me. You know, I love Soka because I've spent a lot of my younger years in visiting lots of different areas of the world and I've got some very, very good friends in Antigua and Trinidad. And yes, I know, Lisa, I've got some very good DJ friends in Tristan and Tobago. And I know I don't know if this is the right forum to be. We love Soka too, don't worry. No, but you do you like Soca too? Did you just say?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do. I am Caribbean. I love Soca and reggae music. Let the record show.
Speaker 3:But I love, I love reggae music. I love Bob Marley's a great you know somebody in terms of his whole history and I learned a lot about, for example, Bob Marley in my younger years when I used to go to the Antigua Carnival and in terms of I don't know, it's music. I think, yeah, music is just for me, it's a way of my, it's about my well-being with music. I just love music and I love the history behind music. I love Dolly Parton, I love Kez, I love Bob Dylan, I love Bob Marley, I just love music.
Speaker 2:I know I really do believe you love Soka because Kez and the band, so I know you know Soka. All right, awesome. So, in terms of travel, because you talk about your charities and I'm very fascinated by that, we might need to talk about that offline. When it comes to travel, where have you been? That's really been so special that you'd love to keep going.
Speaker 3:So my roots are really interesting. My father was born in India, moved to Pakistan. When the partition happened he was a day old or very young, and he spent all most of his life, a majority of his life, in the United Kingdom, mother from Saudi Arabia. So I really enjoy going to Pakistan, I have to admit. But when I say Pakistan I mean the very challenging areas of Pakistan where there's a lot of deprivation and where I can make a difference. You know, lisa, it's really interesting.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you can imagine in this role and through the sort of experiences I will have had through my life or not you may not be able to imagine, but challenges and difficulties are something that I'm used to and when I started at Gemsworld Academy it was a turnaround project and when I started it I had a very tough first year, maybe a tough year and a half at Gemsworld Academy in transitioning not personally, professionally, and COVID was dry and I had come into a school where there was a certain context and a certain expectation and I was coming from a different context and expectation and of course I understood that this needed to marry well together and I needed to appreciate this was different and I was coming from a very highly successful career myself in the United Kingdom and Europe. I sat on the heads IB forum for nearly seven years and I was doing things and I worked incredibly hard for these things. So it wasn't like it was, it just landed in my lap. I had worked incredibly hard. So I had a career, I had a reputation and I came here with big hopes and dreams about how I could support GEMS education through GEMS World Academy and my charities. And it was a tough start. It was an incredibly tough start and I remember people used to say to me how are you coping? This is really quite something. There was some really quite awful moments, actually, and I'd never experienced anything like that in my entire career or in my entire life, and I remember saying to them that I visited parts of Pakistan through my charity work.
Speaker 3:When I see what some children the age of three are going through no clothes, no shoes, no family, no food and just left to their own devices in this big wide world what is it? When somebody perhaps isn't appreciating the hard work I'm putting in and can't see it? I can handle that and I think those things taught me so much. So those places taught me a lot. Those places taught me how to manage my own expectations and sometimes my own wants, needs and desires, and it just made me a stronger person. And that was early sort of adulthood that I learned those lessons and they've stayed with me for a very long time. So my favourite place, I would say, to visit at the moment is definitely Pakistan. I love going there and meeting people and helping to impact communities and learning myself from them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, because someone would have probably said Maldives or somewhere, but you took somewhere. That actually teaches you that what you're doing makes a difference and that it's not always about the glitz and the glam. So I really like that. In terms of the charity work that you do, is it that you go alongside governmental organisations already in place in those countries, or do you go in and try to set up all new infrastructure? How does it work? I'm very fascinated by that, by the way.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much and I really appreciate your fascination, because it's important to know that any one person can make a difference in the world and you don't need to have a huge corporation backing you when you're doing these things. Some models that we use are NGO partnerships with NGOs. Some partnerships that we have are with the government, but predominantly, what I like to do is it's a model that incorporates all three verticals of the charity, if you like. So we find a place in a country that really needs a school or an orphanage, and we then purchase the land, or we rent the land or the land is donated to us, depending on who owns the land, and if we purchase the land, we purchase in the name of God, because you can do that. There's a legal sort of methodology to do that in Pakistan in particular and then we build a school on that land and then we ensure that the governance of that school is held in the hands of some really amazing women who feel that actually all their job is to be a housewife and they don't really want to be out and about in the community and perhaps they need a bit of help being part of the community. So we bring them on and we train them. So I very much govern the whole thing and do all the accounts and look after the entire project. Yes, for the first six months is a model that I've tried and tested, and I do have to mention KPMG in the UK, who helped me set this model up, and David Dangle, my previous sponsor at the Excel Arts Foundation, who absolutely was wonderful in setting up the charity and showing me how to put these models together. And so we would set this school up, we would do all the recruitment. I do the teacher training, I employ the members of staff and now we're not talking about 1000s of members of staff, we're talking about maybe 20 members of staff per school and we would get the governance set up in the form of the local community, in particular women, and just monitor them very closely for the first six months to a year, and once we know they're okay, we'll let it go, but the finances I look after. So that's how we run the schools when there are straightforward partnerships with NGOs we just give them the donation they put a bid in and we will support their schools.
Speaker 3:So, for example, we've got this amazing project under the name of Karanalia in Chennai in India and this is a project for street children of school age, predominantly girls, but there are some boys as well, and I think there are about 580 street children approximately who are being educated through the arts and football, sport, but hygiene as well, looking after yourself, being clean, etc.
Speaker 3:Because of disease and food and nutrition, etc. All of those things are taught through sport, expressive, expressive arts, fashion, etc. Including very basic English and maths, literacy and numeracy, and what we see in the reports from a project like that is the ramification of this project is having a ripple effect on the people at home. So the elder brothers and sisters, the mums and dads, they're learning how to brush their teeth properly, they're learning how to be clean and hygienic, and these are really important things for our communities, especially street communities. So through that project it's one project it impacts about 3,000 people in the streets of India, which is amazing. So that's another model. And then we have models where we partner with some very, very well-to-do families who will support with the school and fund the school and help manage the school with me, but ultimately I look after all the governance in terms of the finances and the human resources.
Speaker 2:You are blowing my mind, saima. You are literally blowing my mind. I do not know how you do all of that. So you're leading GEMS World Academy and then you've currently been promoted to Deputy CEO of GEMS Education Global. What are you excited about for that new role?
Speaker 3:I'm excited about the entire role itself. So I used to be Chief Education Officer at GEMS Education Global and so I looked after that role for two years with a phenomenal group of senior vice presidents Many of you who you've had on your podcast. Lisa looked after the education strategy for two years and it's the final year of the strategy now and the senior vice presidents will implement that with our new chief education officer. So I've been promoted recently as deputy CEO and for that it's the strategic elements which I've been incredibly proud to be a part of previously over the last two years. But it's just the additional responsibilities of operational management, the financial oversight of the entire business plan, and we've just gone into a new investment with Brookfield, and so it's exciting times for us here at GEMS Education.
Speaker 3:Looking after business growth and development. That's the thing I'm most interested, because I was always involved in the financial oversight and the operational oversight and also the strategic leadership and planning. But it's actually the growth, the business growth and development piece that excites me. Going to new markets, growing our portfolio, looking at the new models of schools that we could have, what they look like, the new clientele that we could serve these things are really interesting and exciting for me. I'm very, very excited about working with the founder, mr Sunny Varki, and with the CEO, mr Dino Varki, and my peer, jay Varki, who's also Deputy CEO, in entering new markets, looking at new products, new types of schools that we could bring into the UAE and across this region. Those are the things that really excite me.
Speaker 2:I am looking forward to following the work that you will do in this role. I know you're going to be joined by another fantastic female out of the United Kingdom. I don't think I'm allowed to say her name just yet, but let's just put it that we share the same name and I'm excited to see what she will bring to GEMS as well. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about women in leadership, and that's something I'm very passionate about. Unfortunately, you won't be able to join us at the Women in Leadership Summit on the 28th of September, but while I have you on the podcast September but while I have you on the podcast talk to me about what you think are some of the barriers that are stopping women from ascending to the heights that maybe you have, and even further.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, what a great topic. I think. Look, women in educational leadership face huge, significant challenges, and it's not just about societal issues or gender inequality. There's some hugely compromising experiences that women in leadership, in particular in education, face, and I have had some experiences of those compromising challenges and barriers. When you look at education, we're vastly underrepresented women. That is, you look at the teaching profession, women are all over the teaching profession. That is, you look at the teaching profession, women are all over the teaching profession. But when you look at the actual sort of executive roles, you don't see as many women as you would. I think. I don't know, but I think the statistics in terms of international leaders we'd have to check this is around 28 to 30 percent, maybe 32 percent, 28 to 32, I don't know. But that's not good. You know, those numbers point to a glaring disparity between men and women, in particular when the work of schools is very much done by women in terms of teaching, fraternity. So when you look at the highest levels of leadership in education, you don't see a balanced number of female leaders there.
Speaker 3:Now, there are a number of reasons for that. There are obstacles that we ourselves sometimes place in front of ourselves. There are a number of reasons for that. There are obstacles that we ourselves sometimes place in front of ourselves. There are so many female leaders that are phenomenal and they don't want to put themselves into that position for a number of reasons, mainly because they feel they can't do it. But when I speak to female leaders that come to me with wanting advice or guidance about the next move or whether they should step into leadership, I say absolutely, you should, absolutely. I mean women are the best leaders. I'm sorry, we just are the best leaders, we're just the best people, but we are the best leaders, and I think women sometimes undermine themselves.
Speaker 3:I think there is also the emotional aspect of having this connection to home and to family and their sort of role and I don't think many people say that and I think we need to publicly accept that sometimes a very heavy responsibility that women carry with themselves. I have heard many, many colleagues talk about neglecting home or not being with their children when they need to. Very rarely do I hear my male counterparts or my male colleagues speak such phrases and such sentences. So I think it's these things as well. I think women are also frequently perceived as too emotional, and I've heard this. I've heard in meetings where people are talking. A male member of the team does or says something. It's very much, it's assertive, and they know what they're doing and they've got the experience. They know exactly what needs to happen here. But a female does it and she's too emotional or she just doesn't get it, and I've heard it said about women and I've heard it said about myself and these sorts of things.
Speaker 3:We need the male counterparts, our male counterparts, to support and step up as much as our female counterparts. And I think sometimes biases in the workplace create environments whereby it's very difficult to navigate the obstacles, because you don't always have to remove the obstacles. I believe Sometimes you just need to learn how to navigate those obstacles, and I think sometimes the environment doesn't allow you to be able to do such things. Sometimes and I have to be careful how I say this sometimes the complexity is such that female leaders become obstacles for other female leaders, and that makes me very sad when I see that, because it's not as simple as saying we should be supporting each other. We should be genuinely excited and proud of our female leaders and our female counterparts and we should be not just supporting them, but we should be absolutely championing them and I think sometimes and again I've experienced this, not personally, but I should be absolutely championing them. And I think sometimes and I've again I've experienced this, not personally, but I've seen this happen when women unfortunately become those obstacles for other women, and I think we have to really reflect on that and stop doing it. We have to support each other and this is not a gender fight or anything like that, it's men against women or anything like that, but it's more about that.
Speaker 3:There is a societal issue here. There is, and it is complex, it's not straightforward, because within the female sort of proposition, you also have culture, then you have religion, then you might have class and you might have race and you might have. There's a lot of things at play here. But if we can just be able to champion each other and support each other through with career development, through mentoring, how many mentors do we have that are female? I, lisa, will you believe, have had zero female mentors In my life. I've had five or six phenomenal mentors and they've all been male. And it's about where are these female mentors? I didn't have access to anybody, and I'm sure today I would have access. But when I was early on in my career. They just didn't exist. So we've got to be able to ensure that we're not excluding the female role model from the mentorship, the coaching, the leadership piece I think, the usual stuff the hiring processes, et cetera. They all need to be able to look carefully at reasons of family, reasons of recruitment, looking at why women's pay is not equal still today. There are lots of barriers, which are both external and internal.
Speaker 3:I think cultural and societal expectations play a significant role and they change depending on the context, of course, in which you are. So it's very different here in the UAE and in this region for me, as a female, compared to what it was like in the United Kingdom as a female, compared to what it's like in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or India, etc. As a female. And I think these things, these places, are sometimes entrenched with gender stereotypes which genuinely undervalue women's abilities as leaders. And I think it's places like the UAE where you have the regulators and the rulers really empowering women by celebrating women and really endorsing women in leadership, but also women as women, and I think that needs to be ingrained in everything we do across society, not just a context or a country, but across the global society, and I think we need to allow women to be masculine leadership role models as well as feminine leadership role models. I think it's incredibly important. I think it does require proactive, intentional approach and not accidental approach. I think it's incredibly important that we have intent and it's not about positively discriminating, but it's about intentional intent to make sure that women are treated equally but are also celebrated for who they are, so our children see our women as strong, vibrant leaders in society, not just in the workplace, but at home as well.
Speaker 3:I was really wanting to share with you that when I was younger, my mother used to say I came from a culture that if you're first born and your family wasn't a boy, it wasn't bad, but it was great that you had a child and a healthy child. This was great. But if your second born was not a boy and was a daughter after your first born, who was the daughter? People say, oh, it's not a boy, because the boy would continue the family name, etc. Etc. That was a cultural background I came from and I remember I used to say to my mother because, of course, I was a second daughter born to my parents I would say to my mother is it wrong to be born as a woman? Nobody ever said anything to me, but it was just something I knew and I was aware of as I was growing up. And my mother used to say to me you are so incredibly fortunate, you are so incredibly blessed to be born a woman, a woman.
Speaker 3:Being born a woman means embodying strength and resilience, embodying empathy, embodying unequivocal power to do anything you want to, and it's a privilege. And embrace it, saima. Embrace that you're a woman. You can do absolutely anything. Look at all the women around you. A woman is a source of pride. Feel lucky that you carry this identity and always carry it with so much grace, so much determination, so much resilience that you're going to impact and change the world. That's what women do every day.
Speaker 3:She used to say to me the greatest gift that God can give you is to be born a woman.
Speaker 3:And my mother I mean it gives me goosebumps now thinking of it and she used to say think about it. And, as I said, my mother was from a very, very affluent and successful family. She was a teacher and she was a housewife and she was a mother. And she used to say to me, if you think about it, being a mother is one of the most honourable of careers. If you think about it, you serve, and not in the way serve, but you serve your children, you serve your family, you serve your country, because you are creating amazing global citizens by being a mother, being a housewife. The world you serve by being a mother. And she used to say truly and now I genuinely believe this by God, being born a woman is truly magical, it's the best thing, and I think we just need to embrace this and make sure our children, our partners, our husbands, our parents, everybody understands just being a woman is an amazing thing. Embrace it and just go for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, I'm going to clip that piece and that's just going to be like a mini podcast on its own to empower women Phenomenal your mother sounded like she was an amazing human being because to come from a culture where there are little innuendos about the value placed on the lives of girls. But for her to really brush that aside and empower you in that way is phenomenal, because she could have internalized that and gone oh yeah, we're just women. No, instead she flipped that on its head and said no, to be born a woman is to be born powerful. Love, love, loved that, loved that so much. I have one last question for you, which takes us back to education and just looking at it with a global lens. What are you excited about as you look towards the future of education globally?
Speaker 3:So I think what I'm most excited about, when I look at what's happened today and what the future holds for our children, is this genuine landscape which allows every child because I don't think we've actually got it right for every child a child with cerebral palsy, a child who is gifted and talented, a child who doesn't speak much English but is incredibly bright at performing arts. I look forward to a landscape and you can see the assessment and inspection regime moving towards this. I look through a landscape of education that really puts at the heart and I think you've said this at the start of our conversation that puts at the heart of education well-being and looks at well-being as not the end product and not as mental health and not as a meditation, but looks at well-being in making sure that when children are being educated, they absolutely understand that it is not about the public examinations or the destinations, quite frankly, but it is about the living experience that you are enjoying today in this place, as a grade six, as a grade two, as a grade 12 student, learning about education, learning about knowledge and, most importantly, learning about perspective. Which perspective are you looking at this knowledge from? Because you have one piece of knowledge and you've got three different perspectives from different countries and different contexts and different cultures and backgrounds. It looks different and it sounds different. It feels different and I'm excited about the world moving to that place whereby children are so amazingly educated that they no longer feel conflict is the way and the solution to problems, but they actually understand that perspective is important to be able to work in harmony.
Speaker 3:We have one planet and I love that. Global warming and COP28 in the UAE last year has endorsed an incredible sense of responsibility on all our children in particular about saving our planet and making sure we do the best for it. I love that. Well-being is something that people are openly talking about at the moment and I hope they will continue to.
Speaker 3:Technology is great. I love technology, but I want technology to enhance the teaching and learning experience and never to replace it and never to have those conversations about replacing teachers with robots or AI etc. So I look forward to a landscape where education is actually for that purpose to educate children and not to train them for the world of work and not to train them so they end up in the Russell Group or the Ivy League or wherever else they want to go, but to actually make them so confident as young adults embarking upon a huge world, and they can just be magical and experience those magic moments across the globe, across every day. That is what I think the purpose of education is and that's what I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Dr Saima.
Speaker 3:Thank you, lisa. I really enjoyed it. I could talk and talk but we don't want that.
Speaker 2:I could listen and listen, but I think we have really covered a multitude of fantastic topics on the podcast today and I really do hope that it resonates with our listenership as much as it resonated with me. I do wish you all the success in your new role and your continued success at GEMS World Academy that I hope to visit in the sometime near future. Thank you again, thank you. Thank you, lisa.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Teach Middle East podcast. Visit our website teachmiddleeastcom and follow us on social media. The links are in the show notes.
