UNRWA schooling programme’s focus on raising standards – UNRWA article

West Bank teacher’s way with IT wows students

5 October 2012 – UNRWA provides schooling to over 50,000 students in 99 schools in the West Bank, and has for the last three years been focused on a special plan to raise standards. UNRWA’s plan includes making the curriculum more targeted, teaching methods and remedial classes, and encouraging better community participation.

 As such, enthusiastic and innovative teacher educators like Fatemeh are central to the success of UNRWA’s schools.

What a difference a teacher makes

Fatemah Takroori, 50, is an Arabic teacher at UNRWA’s school for girls in Tulkarem, in the northern West Bank. A Palestine refugee whose family is originally from Jaffa, Fatemah joined UNRWA as an educator in 1982. She has dedicated her career to the exploration of new teaching methods.

“My top priority is the effective dissemination of knowledge to my students”, she says.

Keen to enable her students to learn in new ways, Fatemah has produced a set of audiovisual CDs with accompanying booklets as part of a comprehensive language learning programme to improve her students’ Arabic grammar.

“I sought to design methods of learning that would be attractive and unique to my students”, she said. “It will also help them overcome challenges”.

Diversity of style and delivery

On top of her designing of computerised classes, Fatemah works hard to broaden and enrich the curriculum of the school in other ways. She is the coordinator of a multi-focused curricular plan that uses workshops to introduces the students to civic issues such as the role of the state, local governance and human rights. She also works as a theatre and arts coach for her young students.

It is this diverse approach to teaching that marks her out as an outstanding educator, says school principal Mayadah Abul Qadir:

“Her first priority is to her students… her main concern is to improve the results of her students through motivating materials”.

Fatemah’s activism and dedication to human rights personify the United Nations’ firm support of the universal right to education and international human rights, says the principal.

“Fatemah is a very dedicated teacher”, she adds.  “Really, she is an inspiration.”