Queen Rania Sits In on QRTA’s Novice Teacher Training Program at Al Khansa’a Secondary School

(Office of Her Majesty – Press Department – Amman)  Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah visited Al Khansa’a Secondary School for Girls on Tuesday and attended part of Queen Rania Teacher Academy’s (QRTA) Novice Teacher Training. The program is being implemented at the school by the Ministry of Education (MoE), and is designed by QRTA in partnership with Global Affairs Canada.

Queen Rania met with QRTA CEO Mr. Haif Bannayan, who explained that the training is offered to new teachers with three or less years of experience and aims to develop their skills in seven different fields. These range from classroom management and interactive teaching, to technology implementation in teaching, assessment techniques, and psychological awareness, according to Bannayan.

The Novice Teacher Training program has been designed to reach 4,360 newly hired teachers over the course of five years, and has so far succeeded in training 815 teachers.

Accompanied by Bannayan and the School Principal Ms. Muna Khasawneh, Queen Rania met with past beneficiaries at the school’s computer lab where a focus group was taking place. The group discussion tackled common concerns that teachers share, and explored reasons behind choosing careers in education. The teachers also spoke about the challenges they face as new instructors and how QRTA and ministry programs have helped them overcome these difficulties.

The teachers explained to Queen Rania that advanced training approaches have helped them transfer the skills they acquired through training programs into their classrooms.

At the end of her visit, the Queen stopped by a workshop on teacher learning styles at the school library. Her Majesty attended part of the workshop and spoke with instructors Ms. Jumana Jabr and MoE supervisor Ms. Abeer Abu Rayyan, about the program’s effectiveness in helping teachers-in-training succeed in their careers. 

Novice Teacher Training is one of the multiple QRTA programs developed in partnership with Global Affairs Canada, the department in the Canadian government that manages Canada’s diplomatic and consular relations. The teachers are trained in general classroom management skills over the period of ten days, followed by a more specific training in the subjects of mathematics, science, social studies, Arabic and English for five days.

Established in 2009, Al Khansa’a Secondary School for Girls currently has 710 students and 48 teachers and administrative staff. The school’s building is owned by the MoE.