In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

My Dear sons and daughters the students,
Peace be upon you, Allah's Mercy, and His blessings..

It is with pleasure that I send to each and every one of you, all over our beloved country, on this blessed day that witnesses your return to school, my affection, pride and best wishes for the new scholastic year, a year that shall witness your achievement of your hopes and aspirations for a promising future, Allah's willing.

I would like to affirm on this occasion, that you merit my august care and attention. You are the future generation, builders of tomorrow, through whom we aspire to achieve our vision for the future of Jordan. We exert all possible efforts to invest in you, to stimulate your creative energies, and to provide you with success opportunities that will allow your involvement in the building of the model Jordan, a nation of justice, parity, and equal opportunities.

We have endeavoured earnestly over the past years to provide the right environment for the modernization of education. That was to be realised through empowering the teacher, developing educational curricula and activities, upgrading the pre-school educational stage, and building schools equipped with teaching aids, IT and new technologies that would provide an appropriate school climate for the teaching and learning process.

To crystallize our vision in developing education, and the activation of youth's creative energies, I have instructed the Government to find a new mechanism for the General Secondary School Certificate - Tawjihi. A mechanism that would ensure protecting this national certificate's reputation, and its distinguished level regionally and internationally, as well as ensuring the adoption of a modern vision for a national certificate exam, that enables students to excel, and to be creative in a comfortable scientific and healthy psychological climate.

I have also directed the Minister of Education to redesign the structure of the secondary education stage, on modern bases, that avails students of several choices, that would enable them to either join the work market or to follow their studies in the higher education institutes, in specializations the student may have chosen in the secondary stage, and upon which he built his knowledge and expertise.

Whilst I renew my feeling of pride in you, and in your teachers, and I hail in you the spirit of good citizenship and high responsibility, and your sense of belonging to the homeland, Jordan first and foremost, I assure you that you shall remain the subject of my confidence, hope, and determination to provide the right circumstances for you to achieve the future you aspire for, the future in which you would achieve our aims, and the hopes of your parents and teachers, the aims and hopes for you to be armed with science, knowledge and noble values, which are the foundation of our Arab Islamic civilization.

May God grant us success,,
Peace be upon you, Allah's Mercy and His Blessings

Abdullah II Ibn al Hussein

Amman,
28 August 2004