A WEE COUNTY school has recently launched a free open-access online learning platform to provide young people a new way to learn.

Dollar Academy launched FIDA (Future Institute at Dollar Academy) last Wednesday, May 12.

FIDA’s aim is to empower young people to learn in new ways through innovative projects rooted in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

The platform has been created to address three fundamental challenges: sustainability, equitable access to education and the need for curricular reform.

It will enable young people to work with experts from industry and universities to better understand, and design solutions to, some of the most complex challenges we face, such as climate change, poverty and social injustice.

There is a wide variety of ways young people can get involved, with a core offering of 17 Global Challenges – one for each of the UN SDGs.

Ian Munro, rector of Dollar Academy, said: “FIDA has been developed, in line with our charitable purpose and core belief in the transformative power of education, as a way to further enhance our bursary provision by providing the greatest educational impact to the largest number of young people possible.

“We want to redefine what it means to be a 21st century educational charity.

“The pandemic and its impact on schooling and exams is surely just one reason why it is right we question the educational status quo as well as the inconvenient truth that the current education system in the UK has largely been inherited from the 19th century.”

The first five challenges are now freely available via the website and take from three-eight hours to complete.

They range from Zero Hunger, which sees Masterchef finalist Jilly McCord help children create a new recipe based on local, sustainably-produced foods to Future Plastic, where pupils will make their own bio-plastic at home and will design a novel packaging solution that could help reduce plastic waste.

Visit fida.world for more information.