Haifa Yousef Fadel Najjar (born

Zarqa Zarqa () is the capital of Zarqa Governorate in Jordan. Its name means "the blue (city)". It had a population of 635,160 inhabitants in 2015, and is the second most populous city in Jordan after Amman. History Although the area has been inhab ...

, 1959) is the

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

ian

Minister of Culture A culture minister or a heritage minister is a common cabinet position in governments. The culture minister is typically responsible for cultural policy, which often includes arts policy (direct and indirect support to artists and arts organiza ...

. She was appointed as minister on 11 October 2021.

Education

Najjar completed a degree in population studies at the

University of Jordan The University of Jordan (), often abbreviated UJ or JU, is a public university located in Amman, Jordan. Founded in 1962, and it is the largest and oldest institution of higher education in Jordan. It is located in the capital Amman in the J ...

before attaining a master's degree in transformational management at the

University of Buckingham The University of Buckingham (UB) is a non-profit private university#United Kingdom, private university in Buckingham, England, and the oldest of the country's six private universities. It was founded as the University College at Buckingham (U ...

. She was a founding member of the Board of Trustees of The King's Academy and a board member of the

Greater Amman Municipality Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant reg ...

. Najjar worked at the Ahliyyah School for Girls from 1984, and was Principal at both Ahliyyah and the Bishop's School for Girls since 2008.

Honours

Najjar was awarded the Al-Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Prize (2001), the El-Hassan Bin Talal Award for Academic Excellence (2002), and the European Council of International Schools (ECIS) Award for the Promotion of International Education (2009). She received the Lanfranc Award for Education and Scholarship from

Justin Welby Justin Portal Welby (born 6 January 1956) is an Anglican bishop who served as the 105th archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England from 2013 to 2025. After an 11-year career in the oil industry, Welby trained for ordination at St John ...

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

, in 2017 "for her outstanding contribution to education in Jordan and her exemplary leading role in Jordanian society as a Christian woman."

References

1959 births People from Zarqa Living people 21st-century Jordanian women politicians 21st-century Jordanian politicians Culture ministers of Jordan Women government ministers of Jordan Alumni of the University of Buckingham University of Jordan alumni {{Jordan-politician-stub