Pakistani educator in Kingdom wins Cambridge Dedicated Teacher Award
The International Education group at Cambridge University Press and Assessment has announced accounting and business studies teacher Farrukh Saleem Ghouri from Pakistan International School Jeddah English Section as the regional winner of the 2025 Cambridge Dedicated Teacher Awards in the Middle East and North Africa. Ghouri is the first teacher in Saudi Arabia to be recognized as a regional winner in the competition's seven-year history.
Ghouri is one of nine regional winners of the global Cambridge competition that celebrates the achievements of teachers around the world. As a regional winner, he will win 500 pounds ($665) worth of books for his class, a trophy, take part in a regional awards ceremony and receive publicity for himself and his school during the coming year. He will also appear on a 'Thank you' page at the front of a range of new Cambridge textbooks, available to the public from November.
Ghouri has more than 25 years' experience teaching Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge International A Level accounting and business studies. Currently serving as head of department — commerce at PISJES in Jeddah, Ghouri prides himself in delivering more than just the syllabus.
'Teaching, to me, isn't just about explaining concepts or helping students pass exams. It's about unlocking their potential, challenging them to think bigger, and standing beside them as they discover what they're capable of,' he said. 'Whether it's late-night after school events or guiding students through moments of uncertainty, I believe true education happens when we show up — fully, genuinely, and consistently.' I've simply tried to be the kind of mentor I once needed, and if that's made a difference, then I consider myself incredibly fortunate.'
By going to dedicatedteacher.cambridge.org/vote, the public can now vote for Ghouri or another of the nine regional winners to become the overall, global winner.
The deadline to vote is April 30 and the winner will be announced on May 21.
Rod Smith, managing director of International Education, said: 'I congratulate Farrukh on his immense accomplishments, which I'm sure will inspire teachers and learners across Saudi Arabia.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Arabiya
3 days ago
- Al Arabiya
Judge temporarily blocks Trump ban on foreign students at Harvard
A US judge on Thursday ordered another block on President Donald Trump's repeated efforts to ban foreign students from attending Harvard University. In a court order, US District Judge Allison D. Burroughs blocked Trump's latest proclamation aiming to bar new Harvard international students from entering the country, saying the university had showed that without a restraining order it risked sustaining 'immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.'
Arab News
30-05-2025
- Arab News
Chinese student struck a chord emphasizing humanity during Harvard commencement speech
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts: A day after her emotional speech at Harvard University's commencement, Yurong 'Luanna' Jiang kept running into classmates who praised her message that people should see everyone's common humanity rather than demonize others for their differences. 'We're starting to believe those who think differently, vote differently or pray differently — whether they're across the ocean or sitting right next to us — are not just wrong. We mistakenly see them as evil. But it doesn't have to be this way,' she said in her address, which drew wide applause. 'The message itself, if I have to put it into one sentence, will be humanity rises and falls as one,' Jiang told The Associated Press on Friday. 'We are living in a very difficult time. There's a lot of divisions in terms of ideas, ethnicities, identities. This is a time where we can use a little bit more moral imagination and imagine ourselves being connected with one another.' The 25-year-old Jiang's speech never directly mentioned the Trump administration nor its multi-pronged attack on the nation's oldest and richest university. But she said the turmoil beyond their campus and its impact on her classmates was on her mind as she delivered her speech. 'Students can be very emotionally charged because they care deeply about a lot of issues,' said Jiang, who comes from China and graduated with a masters degree in public administration in international development. 'When you are emotionally charged and activated, it's very easy to demonize another person.' She said the relentless attacks from the Trump administration on the school's funding and threats to detain and deport people studying in the US on student visas have left her unsettled, adding huge uncertainty to her future plans. 'In terms of the plan going forward, I would say everything is up in the air at this point,' Jiang said, who had hoped to remain in the United States for a few years but now is open to working in international development overseas. 'At this point, it's difficult to say what will happen.' This week, the Trump administration asked federal agencies to cancel about $100 million in contracts with the university. The government already canceled more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants, moved to cut off Harvard's enrollment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status. Then it widened the pressure campaign, suspending visa applications worldwide and threatening to deny US visas to thousands of Chinese students nationwide. These actions resonate with Jiang and her classmates — about 30 percent of Harvard's students are international, and China has among the highest numbers. 'The anxiety is real,' said Jiang, who knows two international students from China who are weighing whether to travel for work in Kenya and Rwanda. 'Because of the uncertainty of their visas, they are facing a very tricky situation,' she said. 'They can either go abroad, go to Kenya and Rwanda to do their internship and work on poverty alleviation and public health but risking not being able to make it back to campus safely. Or they can stay on campus and do their internships remote.' 'It's pretty heartbreaking,' she continued'They wanted to help humanity and, to see them entangled in politics they didn't choose, is hard.' Jiang, who went to high school in the United Kingdom and earned her undergraduate degree at Duke University, said there should be more, not fewer, academic exchanges between China and the United States. 'Humanity is facing a lot of crisis,' she said. 'There are conflicts. There is climate. There are a lot things that not only one country can tackle. China and the US are the two most powerful economies or countries in the world. They have to work with each other to be able to combat the problems or the issues that affect every single human being.' Jiang also defended the importance of international students at Harvard, recalling how 60 percent of the students stood up at the Kennedy School of Government commencement when the dean, Jeremy Weinstein, asked how many came from outside the United States. Then he asked if they had learned something from their international classmates, and most everyone stood. 'A lot of us clapped and cheered. A lot of us were in tears,' she said, as Weinstein told them to 'look around, this is your school.' Without international students, it would be a challenge for Harvard to achieve its mission, Jiang said. Campus culture depends on its globally diverse student body, studying and hanging out together. 'Harvard wants its students to go and change the world and you can't change the world without understanding the world,' she said. 'You can't understand the world without truly having a personal connection with people from all sorts of countries.'
Arab News
29-05-2025
- Arab News
Harvard grads cheer commencement speakers who urge the school to stand strong
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts: Harvard graduates celebrated commencement on Thursday at a pivotal time for the Ivy League school, cheering speakers who emphasized maintaining a diverse and international student body and standing up for truth in the face of attacks by the Trump administration. Harvard's battles with Trump over funding and restrictions on teaching and admissions presented another challenge for the thousands of graduates who started college as the world was emerging from a pandemic and later grappled with student-led protests over the war in Gaza. 'We leave a campus much different than the one we entered, with Harvard at the center of a national battle of higher education in America,' Thor Reimann told his fellow graduates. 'Our university is certainly imperfect, but I am proud to stand today alongside our graduating class, our faculty, our president with the shared conviction that this ongoing project of veritas is one that is worth defending.' Other schools face the loss of federal funding and their ability to enroll international students if they don't agree to the Trump administration's shifting demands. But Harvard, which was founded more than a century before the nation itself, has taken the lead in defying the White House in court and is paying a heavy price. A school under threat Among the Trump administration's latest salvos was asking federal agencies to cancel about $100 million in contracts with the university. The government already canceled more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants, moved to cut off Harvard's enrollment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status. Visa interviews for international students admitted to schools nationwide were halted on Tuesday, and Trump said Wednesday that Harvard should reduce its international enrollment from 25 percent to about 15 percent. Sustained by a $53 billion endowment, the nation's wealthiest university is testing whether it can be a bulwark against Trump's efforts to limit what his administration calls antisemitic activism on campus, which Harvard sees as an affront to the freedom to teach and learn nationwide. Citing campus protests against Israel as proof of 'antisemitic violence and harassment,' the Trump administration has demanded that Harvard make broad leadership changes, revise its admissions policies, and audit its faculty and student body to ensure the campus is home to many viewpoints. Harvard President Alan Garber disputed the government's allegations, saying in a letter this month that the school is nonpartisan and has taken steps to root out antisemitism on campus. He insisted that Harvard is in compliance with the law, calling the federal sanctions an 'unlawful attempt to control fundamental aspects of our university's operations.' In response to the administration's threats, Harvard has sued to block the funding freeze and persuaded a federal judge to temporarily halt the ban on enrolling international students. During a hearing in Boston on Thursday, the judge extended her order blocking the ban. Calls for Harvard to stand strong Garber didn't directly touch on the Trump administration threats Thursday. But he did get a rousing applause when he referenced the university's global reach, noting that it is 'just as it should be.' Others speakers were more direct. Speaking in Latin, salutatorian Aidan Robert Scully delivered a speech laced with references to Trump policies. 'I say this: ... Neither powers nor princes can change the truth and deny that diversity is our strength,' Scully said. It was a sentiment echoed by Yurong 'Luanna' Jiang, a Chinese graduate who studied international development. She described growing up believing that the 'world was becoming a small village' and finding a global community at Harvard. 'When I met my 77 classmates from 32 different countries, the countries I knew only as colorful shapes on a map turned into real people, with laughter, dreams and the perseverance to survive the long winter in Cambridge,' she said of the other students in her program. 'Global challenges suddenly felt personal.' Now, though, she said she wonders whether her worldview is under threat. 'We're starting to believe those who think differently, vote differently or pray differently, whether they are across the ocean or sitting right next to us, are not just wrong — we mistakenly see them as evil,' she said. 'But it doesn't have to be this way.' Others weigh in Dr. Abraham Verghese, a bestselling author and Stanford University expert on infectious diseases, opened his keynote address by saying he felt like a medieval messenger 'slipping into a besieged community.' He praised Harvard for 'courageously defending the essential values of this university and indeed of this nation,' and told students that more people than they realize have noticed the example they've set. 'No recent events can diminish what each of you have accomplished here,' Verghese said. On Wednesday, basketball Hall of Famer and activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the 'Class Day' speaker, praising Harvard for standing up to the Trump administration and comparing Garber's response to Rosa Parks' stand against racist segregation. 'After seeing so many cowering billionaires, media moguls, law firms, politicians and other universities bend their knee to an administration that is systematically strip-mining the US Constitution, it is inspiring to me to see Harvard University take a stand for freedom,' he said. Brynn Macaulay, who received a master's degree in public and global health, said she hopes such students will keep enrolling because they bring a wealth of knowledge and perspective. 'On a personal level, it feels like somebody is attacking people that I love and that I consider to be family,' she said. Samartha Shrestha, a fellow public health graduate from Spokane, Washington, said it was disheartening to see the funding cuts' impacts — one of his professors was laid off — and international students' worrying. 'I'm hopeful that they're able to continue getting an education from one of the best, if not the the best, universities in the whole world,' he said. 'My hope and dream is that one day they do graduate, just like I did today, and get to carry on the Harvard tradition to bring change wherever they go in the world.'
