Madrasati Initiative

Amman, Jordan
www.madrasati.jo

OVERVIEW OF MADRASATI 

Madrasati brings together public, private and non-profit partners in an exciting, new grassroots initiative to renovate public schools in urgent need of repair. Led by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah and in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Madrasati will enrich learning environments, and enhance opportunities for school children across Jordan. 

Primary Concern: Infrastructure

Madrasati will first and foremost tackle the urgent need to address the physical state of public schools. Approximately 15% of the 3257 public schools in Jordan are considered badly inhabited (require urgent repairs and essential upgrades to its infrastructure). This includes ensuring that schools adhere to national safety requirements; basic amenities are in good condition such as bathrooms, doors, windows, and furniture. Madrasati is a student-centered approach and employs the principles of partnership, cost-sharing, community ownership, volunteerism, and transparency. These principles will serve the initiative well in achieving its ambitious targets in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. In practical terms, this entails ensuring the involvement of stakeholders at the community level in everything from assessing the needs of the school, fundraising, carrying out the repairs to maintaining the school after completion. 

Each school therefore is required to set up a local committee that involves students, youth, teachers, parents and community members to coordinate its efforts and to liaise closely with the project management unit of the initiative. This is a successful model based on lessons learned from existing initiatives in schools and has resulted in many creative approaches to mobilizing efforts which will be transferred to this initiative, including twinning of private and public schools in Jordan and abroad. Furthermore, each school will be sponsored by a private sector partner corporation, providing school(s) with better access to necessary financial support as well as exchange of skills, knowledge and experiences.  

Parallel Track: Quality Learning Environment and Tools

Second, Madrasati aims to enhance the quality of the learning environment and tools in the same schools. A) Non-governmental organizations operating under Her Majesty’s patronage will expand their existing programs in several thematic areas of focus that include; child safety, healthy schools, technology, skills training amongst others, and will implement them in the Madrasati schools based on their respective needs assessment. B) While the initiative will address the specific needs of schools, a parallel initiative of Her Majesty on teacher training will aim to improve the overall quality of teaching in public schools. Her Majesty already supports teacher training in Jordan and this initiative will make targeted training available to a much greater number of teachers therefore creating a large impact on the quality of education in schools throughout Jordan. 

Her Majesty foresees the partnership approach on which Madrasati has been built to be the most promising path to rejuvenating schools and strengthening the education sector across the Kingdom. It brings together the below partners, supported by the private sector, under one umbrella. The partners will respond to requests from schools (based on the needs assessments carried out by the community committees) by delivering the following options. 

MADRASATI PARTNERS

Madrasati is designed in collaboration with and in support of the Ministry of Education. It aims to build on the efforts of the Ministry in renovating schools and improving the overall learning environment. Madrasati will generate new support in the form of finances and community ownership that will ease the burden on the Ministry and assist it in accelerating desired results. The Ministry will facilitate access to the targeted schools and provide critical information and standards for implementing the renovation and programming components. 

The Jordan River Foundation /Child Safety program is designed to address intervention, prevention and awareness needs of children in Jordan. The program's objectives include enhancing positive child-rearing practices to protect children and to identify, confront, and eliminate different kinds of abuse. Through the Madrasati initiative, child protection training and workshops for organizations and individuals involved in the care, protection, and education of children will be carried out. Additionally, the initiative and the child safety program will help raise awareness about child abuse and provide alternatives on positive parenting.

www.jordanriver.jo  

Children’s Museum Jordan is a project initiated by Queen Rania stemming from her commitment to children’s education, well-being, and development. In collaboration with Madrasati, the children’s museum aims to provide support to promote reading throughout the schools. Additionally, through their Museum School initiative, they will help schools achieve their learning objectives through various means such as providing innovative resources, experience, and activity based learning opportunities at the museum. Furthermore, the museum will arrange tailored class visits, after school activity programs (drama, music, art, robotics, etc…) as well as provide students with the opportunities of discovery learning as well as taking the concept of the music into the classrooms. 

www.cmj.jo  

Greater Amman Municipality/The Child Friendly City initiative aims to generate knowledge of the issues and needs of children in cities. In collaboration with Madrasati, the Executive Agency for a Child Friendly City will strive to improve the well being of students and children by enhancing the quality of their municipal services, ensuring children's participation in decisions related to them, continue supplying nutritional snacks and foods to the schools, and carrying out library related activities. Finally, the municipality will provide the initiative with engineers to help assess the needs of the schools.

www.ammancity.gov.jo  

INJAZ is a non-profit entity that inspires and prepares youth and enhances their opportunities to join the job market as competitive employees and entrepreneurs. This program provides the private sector the opportunity to directly impact the quality of education in Jordan’s schools. Private sector volunteers will come into the classroom to serve as positive role models, and to deliver a unique curriculum that is designed to introduce basic economic and business concepts, while enhancing the students’ leadership, problem-solving, communication and creative thinking skills.

www.injaz.org.jo  

Jordan Education Initiative aims at accelerating education reform through a public-private partnership model. In partnership with Madrasati, JEI provides teachers and students e-content development skills as well as other types of skills as well as the training they need in order to compete and succeed in the global information economy. Through the effective use of information and communications technology and the development of innovative learning solutions, JEI will seek to drive the innovation and capability of teachers and students within the schools of Jordan.

www.jei.org.jo  

Jordan Education Society is a non-profit Society founded by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah to aid in the improvement and modernization of education in Jordan, while enhancing the role of schools in developing and enriching society. The Society’s main goal is to develop and improve educational methods to keep up with global standards of excellence by means of training courses and workshops. These initiatives will be undertaken in collaboration with other regional and international schools and educational facilities, where shared educational experiences can benefit and aid the Society to reach its goals. JES will run a parallel initiative in teacher training, complimenting efforts carried out under Madrasati. 

Royal Health Awareness Society/Healthy Schools Project (RHAS) implements the healthy school project in partnership with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and Ministry of Education (MoE). It has already achieved successful results in various public schools across the Kingdom, and aims to up-scale to include the Madrasati identified schools. It aims to support the achievement and well being of schools through meeting the requirements and guidance of the newly developed National Health Schools Standards. Through this initiative, RHAS will train the schools on adopting the standards and qualifying them to ensure proper implementation in partnership with both ministries, as well as evaluating the coherence of schools to the standards and granting those schools that have successfully met the National Health Standards with accreditation as a ‘healthy school”.  RHAS has already started the implementation of the healthy schools program in approximately 25-30 Madrasati schools, whereby each school has a local committee representative of parents, teachers, students as well as community leaders.

www.rhas.org.jo  

Ruwwad works to improve living conditions in marginalized areas in Jordan and the Arab region through programs focusing on education, child-development, entrepreneurship and employment. Through the Madrasati initiative, Ruwwad aims to support schools through innovative volunteer programs.

www.ruwwad.net  

Private Schools Council/School Twinning Program contribute to the development of the educational process by strengthening ties among the public and private schools. Their relationship will allow an exchange in resources as well as an exchange in experience in all aspects: cultural, education, academic, social, and in the fields of sports and arts, therefore developing the proficiency of teachers, administrators, and students through a two way interaction and exchange of experience process. 

The Queen Rania Award for Excellence in Education was created to enhance the status of teachers and boost their morale, bringing prestige to the profession and inspiring much motivation. In partnership with Madrasati, the distinguished teachers will be able to pass on their expertise by training other instructors, thus improving the quality of education. Implementation of this award system in the Jordanian education sector will become a strategy for teachers and schools to follow a path towards excellence, enabling exchange of innovative ideas and best-practices.

www.queenraniaaward.org  

UNICEF – Student Councils (SCs) and Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) are two main forums through which adolescents and their parents can influence, improve and interact with school life. UNICEF will help implement these forums in the Madrasati schools. With the active participation of students and their parents, this will result with motivated principals and teachers and an enhanced learning environment for the students and teachers. Additionally, UNICEF will also focus on combating the violence and abuse in the public schools and providing awareness, tools and approaches of how to deal with conflict, violence within the schools.

www.unicef.org/jordan  

HOW CAN THE PRIVATE SECTOR BECOME INVOLVED 

The scale and scope of this initiative is one that requires a collective national partnership of private, public, civil society and academia. This is the first time a school-based effort will bring together twelve partners who focus on diverse aspects of education under one umbrella. In addition to infrastructure, the initiative aims to improve the quality of teaching and learning, the student-friendliness of the school, healthiness, safety, job readiness and innovation. 

Private sector organizations in Jordan, including small, medium, large and subsidiaries of multinational corporations are also critical partners to this initiative and can be active participants. By sharing resources, expertise, or employee time, corporations can make a big difference to students in schools in Jordan. 

This initiative represents an opportunity for corporations to invest their resources in a results oriented approach. A company that sponsors a school will see positive changes in a short period of time. Corporations can also focus their corporate social responsibility efforts by investing in multiple coordinated programs aimed at improving education in a holistic manner. 

The difficult situation in these 500 most badly inhabited schools cannot be overlooked. To ignore our schools is to ignore the health of our communities and the future of our children. If, we all believe, a school is at the center of a healthy community, working together in addressing the challenges faced in schools provides a window of hope in tackling much greater societal challenges. 

Private sector organizations can:

Sponsor school(s) financially. Contributions from 15,000 to 100,000 JD can make a transformational impact on the physical infrastructure and the learning environment in schools. 

Provide in-kind donations. The schools are in need of various items that will help in enhancing students’ educational needs such as; renovation materials, stationary, classroom supplies, and computer hardware and software. 

Support one or more of the partner organizations to implement educational programs that assist the students beyond academia, helping them develop their personalities and characters into productive adults. To support such programs in the 500 schools, please see list of partners above.  

Other suggestions are welcome. Corporations may also consult other corporations on their experience in supporting schools and communities.  

• Sharing expertise on planning and management skills to help better manage the schools in the long run.


• Taking an active part in the local community committee and provide them with fresh ideas in getting the community better involved


• Training teachers and students on computers or other required skills;


• Participating in programs such as INJAZ; or with other partners based on your interests and areas of focus.


• Tutoring students who are in need of extra assistance;


• Fundraising through payroll deductions and special events;


• Support extra-curricular activities such as sports and field trips.

For more information visit our website

www.madrasati.jo