Ammon News -
AMMAN - The Theodor Schneller School (TSS) Amman has become part of a German language teaching initiative and a member of a network of German schools abroad in cooperation with the Goethe Institute.

Under a cooperation agreement signed on Thursday with the Goethe Institute in Amman, the TSS will receive professional consultancy and support for its German programme and in return offer at least four teaching units of German per week.

The Goethe Institute will also provide modern textbooks, furniture and a teacher's reference library as part of the agreement.

During the signing ceremony, attended by officials from the ministries of education and labour, Goethe Institute Director Christiane Kramer-Hus-Hus said the agreement aims at "establishing German as a foreign language in academic institutions".

She added that the TSS is the second school in the Kingdom to join the initiative after the Jubilee School, noting that German is "probably" the third foreign language spoken in the Kingdom after English and French.

Kramer-Hus-Hus voiced hope that more Jordanians will be interested in learning German and pursuing their higher education in German institutions, pointing out that the Goethe Institute has been working in Jordan for 50 years towards this end.

Musa Munaizel, a pedagogical concerns adviser at TSS, told The Jordan Times that the agreement is part of the cultural and academic cooperation between Jordan and Germany and aims at "promoting German language education in the country".

"German will be taught at TSS from the kindergarten level to the fifth grade," he said.

The "Schools: partners for the future" initiative is being coordinated by the German foreign office and implemented jointly with other German educational agencies, according to a statement released by the German embassy in Amman.

"The network of German schools abroad and schools which offer the German language diploma is being enhanced to ensure that German continues to be firmly established as a foreign language in national educational systems," the statement said.

The TSS was first established in 1860 by the late Rev. John Ludwig Schneller in Jerusalem, where it provided services for orphans and the needy until 1948. In 1950, Schneller graduates moved to Jordan and established a school in Amman's eastern suburb of Marka.

Figures provided by the statistics unit of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research that 1,036 Jordanians are currently studying in Germany, making it the third most popular European country for study abroad after Russia and Ukraine.

* By Raed Omari Jordan Times