Steelcase - Jeraisy at Forefront of Innovation in Education

To support the growth of the Saudi Arabian education sector, Steelcase and local partner Jeraisy Group will be manufacturing at its factory in Riyadh the flagship Node Chair for learning environments. It is the first time a manufacturer has been licensed to produce the Node Chair in the Middle East, a move which will both strengthen industrial capability in the Kingdom and enhance opportunities for fostering Active Learning environments within the higher education sector. 

According to international consultancy and construction company Mace, Saudi Arabia continues to invest heavily in education infrastructure projects, with a record budget of $229 billion approved in 2015. These projects include the construction of three universities, major refurbishment and upgrading of existing universities, along with hundreds of new schools and sports centres across the country. The Kingdom spends approximately 25% of its total fiscal spending, and 7.6% of its GDP, on education, for a sector that caters to approximately 8.5 million people across various levels of education. With a rapidly growing population and rising personal income levels, growth in the Saudi education sector is set to continue. 

Building upon 25 years of successful partnership between Steelcase and Jeraisy Group, the local production of the Node Chair will help meet product demand in the domestic market and dramatically reduce delivery times. Additional assembly lines being established at the Steelcase-Jeraisy factory to support the increased production volumes will also create new jobs, bringing economic benefits to the Kingdom. 

Commenting on the strengthened Steelcase-Jeraisy partnership Mohammed Al-Saleh, General Manager for Steelcase Jeraisy Ltd said: “In line with the vision of the Saudi leadership, Steelcase-Jeraisy is committed to supporting the growth of the education sector through the provision of best-in-class products that can enhance productivity and motivate learning. The Jeraisy Group’s ongoing partnership with Steelcase and latest local production agreement will also contribute to the industrial dynamism of the Kingdom by transferring international production expertise to our local workforce and increasing our domestic output.”

As an international leader in learning environments, Steelcase draws on thorough research into changing educational trends and pedagogies to create innovative products like the Node Chair. Designed to “Move, Fit, Store, Connect,” it promotes a highly adaptive learning environment to accommodate any teaching style. Incorporated backpack storage on the base promotes a spacious work area, while the swivel seat placed on castors makes the Node Chair highly mobile. By keeping the personal work surface in tandem with the swivel seat, Node’s clever design allows students to shift their focus or orientation throughout the room without forfeiting access to books, laptops or other information. Node is also highly adaptable and functional for both left- and right-handed students, while the work surface is adjustable to perfectly accommodate students of all shapes and sizes. With Node, a classroom can flex from lecture mode to groups, and back again, without interruption. Node can take passive space and make it active, supporting active and team-based learning, even when student density is important.

Following developments in technology, pedagogy and space – three key elements of today’s Active Learning ecosystem – Steelcase Education has found that traditional classroom settings are not conducive to the evolution of learning methods, with many classrooms employing such diverse activities as lectures, group discussion and individual work over short time periods. The Active Learning concept enables collaborative learning through greater flexibility in classroom configurations, a mode of learning that has been proven to have a greater impact on knowledge retention. 

“For Steelcase Education, every place has the potential to be a learning place, and this is what our Active Learning concept is all about. We are conceiving new ways for students, teachers and colleagues to interact in formal and informal learning spaces, trying to design more collaborative, flexible and technology-friendly classroom solutions to improve student engagement and, in turn, success. As the Saudi education continues to grow and evolve, we hope more academic institutions will look to Steelcase-Jeraisy to help implement this style of learning,” said Andy Morris, Sales Director Middle East, Steelcase.

Prior to the announcement of its local production in Saudi Arabia, Node was already proving popular in the domestic market. Recognizing the significant role played by furniture design in encouraging student engagement and collaboration in the classroom, universities such as Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University and the University of King Abdulaziz in Jeddah have purchased 1500 and 2500 Node chairs respectively to use across their facilities.