Queen Rania Pays Tribute to Teachers

(Office of Her Majesty, Press Department – Amman) Building on the success of last year’s Teacher’s Award, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah joined teachers from across Jordan to celebrate their commitment to education.

During the award ceremony, Queen Rania distributed the second annual award for excellence in teaching and thanked all the finalists for “enlightening the minds of successive generations.”

“Because of the profound influence you have in the classroom and in the development of society, this award recognizes your efforts,” said the Queen as she encouraged the teachers to share their successes with others to allow “the ripples of success [to be] felt throughout all our communities.”

This year’s Distinguished Teachers were: Suzanne Al-Saleem from Bani Kananeh for KG – 3rd grade; Intisar Banihani from Northern Badiyeh for 4th-8th grade; Ali Al Rathwaneh from Madaba for 9th and 10th grades; Manal Khayyat from Salt for the Academic Twajihi; and Mustafa Mansour from Irbid for the Vocational Tawjihi.

Each of the first place winners received personal laptops, which were donated by HP to support Queen Rania’s mission to encourage excellence in teaching, and JD 3,000 cash prize. Her Majesty has concentrated on elevating the prestige of the profession because of the impact direct impact has on the future of Jordan.

Honorees not only receive the status and prizes to promote their creativity and excellence, but are offered capacity building opportunities. Last year’s recipients had the chance to attended courses in prestigious international academic institutions and participated in international conferences. Each recipient has spoken publicly about the positive effect these opportunities have had in their classrooms and communities.

There are currently over 90,000 teachers and 5,000 schools in Jordan that cater to over 1.6 million students. “Let us work together and nourish the skills of the innovators among you,” said the Queen to encourage all the other nominees for the award. Second and third place winners also received cash prizes, which were all provided by the Jordan Education Trust (JET), while non awardees received certificates of appreciation.

All the nominated teachers attended this year’s ceremony, as did Minister of Education Khaled Touqan; the Award’s Higher Committee and Technical Committee; Assessors Committee; Directorates’ Coordinators; the principals from the finalists’ schools.

“You carry a great responsibility, and you do so with much sincerity and integrity,” Queen Rania said with pride to all the teachers before distributing the awards, “I know that as you hold the award of distinction in one hand, you bear the future of Jordan in the other.”

Her Majesty noted that due to the continuing success of the award, the network will soon expand to include distinguished supervisors, administrators and schools across the Kingdom.
On the occasion of World Teacher’s Day, UNESCO, the International Labor Organization (ILO), UNDP, UNICEF, and Education International issued a joint statement emphasizing the vital role that teacher’s play, saying that “teachers are a crucial element in the achievement of the international education goals of Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)” and emphasized the need to celebrate and support the quality teachers across the world.