Her Majesty Queen Rania on Wednesday highlighted the important and pivotal role teachers play in the educational process. “People always focus on how doctors treat people, engineers construct buildings, or politicians make decisions. But teachers educated them; they are the foundation for all other professions. It’s with teachers that future doctors, nurses, engineers and politicians spend a third of their day during childhood. It’s teachers who put them on the path to discovering their career in the first place,” she said at an event marking World Teachers’ Day, observed annually on October 5. Some 120 teachers from different public schools in the Kingdom attended the celebration, held at the Queen Rania Teachers’ Academy (QRTA), according to a statement released by Her Majesty’s office. The Queen first met with five of the longest serving teachers in the country, who spoke to her about the challenges they faced through their years of service in the field. One of these teachers shared her lifelong experience with the audience, introducing them to one of her old students, who was inspired by her to become a schoolteacher as well; they now teach in the same school. Also during the event, a group of students expressed their affection for their teacher by reciting a poem. In addition, four teachers representing Madrasati, the Jordan Education Initiative, QRTA and the Queen Rania Awards for Excellence in Education talked about their involvement in these initiatives, and the moral and technical support they received. QRTA’s “networks of professional development and communities of practice”, established in partnership with the Columbia University Teachers College, has created an opportunity for teachers to gain technical and practical skills in the Kingdom’s public schools. This training is recognised as the most significant aspect that distinguishes QRTA from other teacher training programmes, the statement said. To date, QRTA has reached over 2,700 educators in the Kingdom and has also made significant headway in areas of regional expansion. The academy was nominated as a regional centre of excellence by the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation, the World Bank and the Qatar Foundation to be the host for the proposed Arab Regional Agenda on Improving Education Quality.