Queen Rania attends workshop on future of ICT in education

AMMAN — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Sunday joined ICT and education experts participating in a workshop that discussed the future of ICT in education in Jordan.

The high-level event was organised by the Ministry of Education in partnership with Queen Rania’s not-for-profit organisation, the Jordan Education Initiative (JEI), according to a statement from Her Majesty's office.

The workshop aimed at introducing the latest trends in the use of ICT in education by tapping the experiences of international companies in addition to a group of local firms that have experience in this field.

Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel, Promethean and HP were among the companies that presented applicable solutions and ideas on how to accelerate educational reform through innovation and ICT integration in Jordan, the statement said.

Her Majesty, who has always believed in the importance of investing in quality education as it is the best equaliser, thanked all partners and participants for their efforts in improving the status of education in Jordan. 

Talking about the importance of offering realistic and applicable solutions, the Queen stressed the need to identify the capabilities and infrastructure of each area in order to map out the most suitable ICT strategies that best meet their needs.

“We don’t want solutions that we are not ready for yet, or projects that would stop halfway because of poor planning,” Her Majesty said. 

Queen Rania added that Jordan used to be one of the pioneers in this field especially since ICT in education has been at the top of His Majesty King Abdullah’s agenda. 

However, and unfortunately, we still haven’t accomplished all that we aspire to when it comes to integrating ICT in education, she noted. 

The Queen also encouraged attendees and stakeholders to join forces in order to set out a definitive plan that is in line with and complements the work of the National Committee for Human Resource Development, which was established under the King's auspices to develop an integrated, comprehensive and strategic system for human resources development.

Her Majesty then underlined the importance of building partnerships between the public and the private sectors, noting that JEI has been a wonderful example of such successful partnerships in the past. 

Education Minister Mohammad Thneibat and JEI CEO Nermine Nabulsi shared their own organisations’ insights on how to introduce robust solutions for ICT in education in the country.

Thneibat explained that the ministry has developed a national ICT strategy to ensure high-level performance within the educational system.

He added that a steering and a technical committee have been established to supervise and follow up on setting the execution plans of the strategy to be aligned with the national plan in this regard.

ICT Minister Majd Shweikeh, members of the National Committee for Human Resource Development, the Education Ministry's secretary general, director of the Queen Rania Centre for Information and Education Technology, and the directors of a number of international and local private sector companies also attended Sunday’s workshop, according to the statement.