In a special awards ceremony held recently, GEMS Education celebrated its provision of world-class student counselling that has helped 29,000 of its senior students during the last academic year prepare for the next step of higher education.

GEMS Education and third-party EdTech platform Unifrog held the first ever GEMS and Unifrog Workshop and Awards event at Jumeirah College Dubai to highlight and share best practice among GEMS UAE and Qatar schools.

Counsellors representing the 44 GEMS schools across the two countries attended.

Unifrog offers expert advice and guidance to schools and students on higher education next steps and is a partner of GEMS’ unique GEMS For Life programme. The latter combines support for higher education – including access to scholarships, employment experience in the form of virtual and face-to-face, skills courses and internships – with the GEMS Alumni programme, which boasts a database of some 125,000.

GEMS guidance counsellors from across the Emirates attended the in-person event to celebrate their achievements across the school network, with trophies awarded to counsellors across various categories, including three Rising Star Awards, Best Overall User Award, Best Parent Engagement Award, and a Longtime Achievement Award. 

The GEMS Education and Unifrog Awards were conceived by the GEMS For Life team in collaboration with Unifrog. They are the first such Unifrog awards globally, and GEMS is the first K-12 education provider to honour its schools and counsellors in this way.

Gwawr Tagg, Director for University Partnerships, GEMS For Life, said: “The GEMS Education and Unifrog Awards help us shine a light on the incredible resources made available for all GEMS schools within UAE and Qatar through the comprehensive Unifrog platform. It also helps us celebrate schools and individuals who are using the platform well to support higher education and careers guidance within our schools.

“We currently have 29,000 active student accounts across 44 GEMS schools, all of whom are taking advantage of the ever-growing suite of tools made available to them, including personality quizzes, psychometric testing, careers libraries, university shortlisting, scholarship searches, and many more incredible features. We are proud of how all our schools are embracing the platform to meet the needs of each of their students.”

Matthew Tompkins, Vice President – GEMS For Life, added: “This is wonderful recognition of the fantastic work that GEMS counsellors do and the impact they have on the careers choices made by our students. The world of work changes at such a rapid pace and we are proud to work alongside Unifrog and such a gifted and dedicated team of counsellors at GEMS Education.”

During the event, Unifrog invited two highly proficient GEMS counsellors to run interactive best-practice sessions to inspire and motivate other GEMS counsellors on how they can creatively use the platform to support their higher education career planning for the 2023-24 academic year.

Unifrog is an award-winning destinations platform and plays an integral role within school guidance counselling planning and resources. It is part of GEMS Education’s lifelong commitment to preparing students for future success, beyond their GEMS school.