Queen Rania attends event marking Iman Early Learning Centre’s 20th anniversary 

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Wednesday joined Iman Early Learning Centre (IELC) staff, teachers and parents at the King Hussein Club to mark the centre’s 20th anniversary. 

During the event, Her Majesty sat in on a presentation given by psychologist and author Madeline Levine on parenting and teaching the 21st century child, according to a statement released by the Queen’s office.

Levine, who co-founded Challenge Success, a project that seeks to raise healthy and motivated children, stressed the importance of developing early learning tools that enable students to face work challenges in the future. 

She also stressed the importance of adopting healthy lifestyles, gearing children to avoid drug use and abstain from other harmful behaviours. 

Huda Muasher, founder of IELC, who attended the event with her husband, Rajai Muasher, thanked Their Majesties for their efforts in trying to improve education in Jordan. 

She noted that Her Majesty took the lead in launching a national strategy for early learning, the first of its kind in the Arab world. 

The IELC founder also referred to several of Queen Rania’s educational initiatives, including the most recently launched Edraak, a massive open online course platform presenting the Arab world with unique and vital opportunities that can be part of a necessary revolution in education and learning.

Her Majesty attended a brief on IELC’s work and services, including the Challenge Success project, the statement said. 

Robert Corso, research assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, private and public school principals and teachers, parents, as well as heads and representatives of non-governmental educational organisations also attended the event. 

 The IELC was founded in 1994 as a half-day preschool for children between the ages of two and four to provide them with solid educational, cognitive, creative and moral foundations. 

Since 2003, the centre has been training early childhood educators in Jordan through a programme called Working with Children and has trained around 500 teachers so far.