Meet the Team: Global Indian International School, Dubai

The Global Indian International School is one of two new Indian curriculum schools opening in September.

In its first year, the CBSE school will offer classes from pre-KG to KG, with Grades 1 to 5 due to open in April 2018 when the new academic year begins for Indian schools.

In addition to the CBSE curriculum, GIIS Dubai will also offer the IB Diploma programme stream for students from Grade 10 onwards, making it the first CBSE school in the UAE to offer the IBDP.

There are also plans to offer a choice of the CBSE or British IGCSE option from Grade 7 onwards. However, this is subject to KHDA approval after the school completes its first inspection in three years' time.

We meet the senior leadership team at the "hybrid curriculum" school ahead of its opening:





RAMESH MUDGAL
Principal

With more than two decades of experience spanning teaching, administration and management of school operations, Ramesh Mudgal is the principal of the Global Indian International School, Dubai. As the head of various K-12 international schools, he has led large teams of academic and non-academic staff to excellence. As the management representative for Edutrust (Singapore), his leadership across the three campuses in Singapore resulted in the organisation achieving the Edutrust certification for four years.

After teaching in various schools for about eight years, Mudgal was appointed as vice principal of The Jain International School, Bilaspur in 2004. In 2005, he began his three-year long stint as principal of The Jain International School, Chattisgarh. April 2008 marked the beginning of his association with the Global Indian International School as he headed the Thailand campus, following which in 2009, he was tapped to head the Singapore campus. Known for his ability to build an entity from the ground up, he has been a founding principal at the GIIS campus in Bangalore from 2 and was most recently the founding principal of GIIS, Abu Dhabi.

His skills in problem-solving, communication, management, conflict resolution, and mission attainment have helped him contribute to the growth of the various organisations he has worked with.





ANJUM ALI
Head of Kindergarten

Anjum has progressed from being an early years teacher to training KG teachers and supervising the kindergarten department. With several years of experience in teaching and learning, she has led an outstanding KG department in a top school in the UAE.

She continues her quest for child development with the belief that every child is different and needs to be educated according to ability. She has nurtured over 5000 children and looks for newer challenges in the field of early years education. Her major contributions are integrated lesson plans with differentiation that go beyond the classroom.






ATUL TEMURNIKAR
Founder and executive chairman
Global Schools Foundation

Under Atul Temurnikar's leadership, the Global Indian International School grew from 48 students in 2002 to 13,000 students in 21 campuses spread across seven countries. His leadership skills helped the school achieve the International Asia Pacific Quality Organisation Award in September 2009.

Temurnikar is a strong believer in the Indian educational system and envisions to globalise the system in different countries of the world.

He has also been an integral part of many social and community services in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan and has made commendable efforts towards social education initiatives in all these countries.




KAMAL GUPTA
Chief operating officer, Global Schools Foundation

Kamal Gupta is the group chief operating officer for Global School Foundation (GSF), Singapore. He is also directly responsible for GSF's business development in the Middle East and Africa.

Prior to Joining GSF, Gupta was the managing director for Middle East, Africa and CIS for Fonterra, a New Zealand based global leader in the dairy industry. Gupta's leadership led to a significant turnaround in the brand's Middle East performance and introduced number of initiatives. He also worked as the regional commercial director of Fonterra Brands (Asia Holdings) Pte Ltd based in Singapore from May 2006 to September 2010. In this role he was responsible for overall commercial strategy, finance, business information systems and processes, M&A and joint venture management for the region.