Excellence in Education
Happy New Year from the Aga Khan Academies
Dear friends of the Aga Khan Academies,
Happy New Year to you and your families from all of us at the Aga Khan Academies.
As we look toward 2018, I’m pleased to share with you some of the exciting developments that the Academies are anticipating for the coming year.
Across the Aga Khan Development Network, we will be continuing to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of His Highness the Aga Khan, marking 60 years of his enlightened leadership as the Imam of the Ismaili Muslims and founder of the AKDN. The Jubilee commemorations began on 11 July 2017 and will continue until July 2018. The Aga Khan Academies have been running two social media initiatives in honour of the Diamond Jubilee – Academies ‘Journeys’ and ‘60 Stories for 60 Years’ – and these will continue through this July. I hope you are enjoying them.
The Jubilee year marks a time of increasing expansion of the Aga Khan Academies. Construction of the full campus for our third Academy in Maputo, Mozambique has proceeded rapidly, and our students and staff are looking forward to the opening of the beautiful new school buildings that will house students from grades 3–7 in the very near future. The Academy in Maputo also expanded their curricular offering this academic year, having introduced the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme, which has been received very well by our students and teachers.
I’m also very pleased to share that our fourth Aga Khan Academy in Dhaka, Bangladesh will begin construction in 2018. The design for the forthcoming Academy won the award for best ‘Future Education’ project at the World Architecture Festival 2017. We’re looking forward to seeing the vision behind the award-winning design come to life, to provide talented students from Bangladesh and the region with a world-class education, regardless of their socioeconomic background.
In 2018 we will also be celebrating 15 years of the Aga Khan Academies network, with our first Academy in Mombasa, Kenya having opened in 2003. During the past 15 years, the Academies have pioneered innovative approaches in a multitude of areas, including the cross-curricular Aga Khan Strands, approaches to leadership development and service learning, campus design for a well-rounded education, talent identification, and developing local teachers into IB practitioners, amongst others. As our network grows, we are continuing to see the power of becoming a global, closely integrated and pluralistic learning community that allows sharing of ideas, expertise and thinking across varied contexts and cultures.
We greatly value your support for the Aga Khan Academies and our collective effort towards creating a better future through education.
Wishing you and your families the very best for 2018.
Warm regards,
Salim A.L. Bhatia
Director of Academies
Shouquot Hussain: encouraging academic and holistic growth at AKA Mombasa
Shouquot Hussain was born and raised in India and has been the Vice Principal of the Diploma Programme (DP) at the Aga Khan Academy Mombasa for seven years. He says his time and experience at the Academy have been the best seven years of his life, both professionally and personally. “To put it simply, the experience has been magical, happy, growth-inducing and memorable,” Shouquot says.
Shouquot says he will miss everything about the Academy; its diversity, the relationships he built with students and colleagues and the numerous events he got to be a part of. “I will miss it like I miss home,” Shouquot says. “My son literally grew up here. He was in Year 4 when he came here and has now completed the Middle Years Programme (MYP). In fact in all ways barring the passport, he is more Kenyan than he is Indian. Likewise, I will miss the home I built here – within the campus and without. I will miss the Mombasa vibe, which engulfs you with warmth, not frenzy.”
If there’s one thing the Academy has taught Shouquot, it’s to be respectful and accepting of the differences of others. “There are many ways to be right; I always knew this theoretically as an educator, but I got to really practice it experientially here,” He says.
While at the Academy, Shouquot has contributed to several academic achievements. As a teacher in the English department, the Higher Level English class he taught in 2016 achieved an average of 5.92, the highest to be attained thus far at AKA Mombasa. The English Extended Essay (EE) that he supervised went on to score the highest marks yet in Africa. Furthermore, he initiated the Extended Essay Fair where students could visit subject-specific specialists to better understand the expectations of the EE, discuss possible topics and learn about the resources available to students before beginning their EEs.
However, not all of his achievements were academic. Shouquot has always been a champion of activities that encourage the holistic growth of students beyond the classroom. In 2013 he revived the boys cricket programme in Senior School, which has since won a championship. There is now a girls cricket team too. He also established the annual DP play and supported many other programme and events such as TEDxYouth@AKAMombasa and the annual graduation ceremony among others.
“For the last seven years that I have worked with Shouquot, I have come to know him as a passionate teacher who finds his spark working with students,” says Francis Kariuki, Principal of Senior School. “He is also a compassionate person who has the interest of students and colleagues at heart. As a leader, he is firm and supportive with a strong sense of fairness and justice. He has a spontaneous and fun-loving personality with unmatched love for books and movies. He is generous and always looking for opportunities to bring fun to others. We will miss him in the Senior School leadership team.”
For his next stop, Shouquot will be joining the Beacon Academy, an International Baccalaureate (IB) school in Jakarta, Indonesia. There, he will navigate the DP English and Theory of Knowledge (TOK) programmes and introduce DP film studies as a subject. He also says he will support the school reinvent the curriculum design to allow for more experimentation and differentiated pacing with a bigger focus on formative assessments.
Academic fairs help with decision making
International Baccalaureate - Middle Years Programme
International Baccalaureate - Middle Years Programme
Academy Campuses
The campus of each Aga Khan Academy is architect designed and purpose built, and features exceptional facilities for all aspects of student life. Each campus is designed by renowned architects and is tailored both to meet the needs of the school and to maximise the potential of the site.
Site selection and design
Site selection is a complex process that takes into account a number of factors. These include the urban context of the site, accessibility, infrastructure support and options for long-term expansion.
The site must be able to provide an environment that will be conducive to learning and living. It should also have the potential for creating a space that is inspiring and special for those who live, study and visit there.
The design process for an Academy campus takes into account best practices in facility design. This includes construction techniques that allow spaces to be used for multiple purposes, and classroom environments that are conducive to interactive learning.
Extensive facilities
Each Academy includes the following academic and resource areas:
- age and subject-appropriate classrooms
- well-equipped science and computer laboratories
- library and resource centres
- art and music rooms
- theatre
- design and technology workshop
- multipurpose hall
- religion and culture room
- career counselling facility
- Commons building, which houses the dining hall and an array of spaces for school activities. It is designed to be the hub of student activity, serving as the Academy’s main space for major school functions, including music and drama performances and public lectures.
The sports facilities are extensive and include:
- swimming pools
- sports fields, for example for soccer, hockey and athletics
- gymnasium for indoor sports such as basketball, badminton, volleyball, gymnastics
- tennis court, cricket pitch or ice-skating rink, as appropriate.
Residential accommodation
Residential facilities have been designed to accommodate students and dorm parents (teachers who have been selected and trained to live in the faculty apartments in the student residences).
Accommodation is available for Academy community members from both within the country and overseas, as well as those visiting or on exchange from other Academies. Additional teachers' quarters on campus house both resident and visiting faculty along with their families.
Admissions Open
The Aga Khan Academy Maputo is welcoming applications for admission for the 2017-2018 academic year. Procuramos crianças e jovens com elevado potencial.
AKA Maputo faculty members receive training for their professional development
AKA Maputo hosts mathematics workshop for parents with Karim Ismail
Celebrating diversity, culture and community at Logos Hope and AKA Maputo
