Public university Excellence Award

The higher education sector in Jordan plays a great and distinguished role in bringing about comprehensive development at various levels and fields. Despite the limited resourses and human capabilities in the Kingdom, higher education is among the priorities of the state’s concerns because of its role in raising the level of economic, social and knowledge life of citizens. His Majesty King Abdullah II  paid special attention to higher education, and directed his successive governments to pay attention to and develop higher education. The higher education sector in Jordan has witnessed, during the past two decades, a remarkable development and growth, confirmed by the increase in the number of higher education institutions, the number of registered students and members of the teaching and administrative staff, and the increase in the volume of spending and government support for this sector. Being proud of this expansion and growth constitutes a challenge that calls for exerting more effort to overcome difficulties and obstacles in order to achieve a balance between the spread and establishment of higher education on the one hand, and its level and content on the other.

The university is considered a civilizational, intellectual, scientific and technical radiation center, a leader of development and progress plans, a maker of solutions to current and future problems and facing the challenges of the times. Therefore, it needs to develop the concept of institutional management of its system to keep pace with the requirements of change and rise to the level of challenges. On the basis of the directives of the patron of the march, His Majesty King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein, may God protect him, to support science and education and raise the efficiency and level of Jordanian youth to meet the requirements of the times and the labor market, the King Abdullah II Center for Excellence launched the official Distinguished University Award in cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Its first session is to enable public universities, through positive competition among themselves, to keep pace with development at various levels and raise the level of performance, where excellence is the only way for the university’s survival and continuity in a world based on a high degree of uncertainty and unpredictability of the future and thus helping the Ministry to achieve its vision of B "Higher education services and distinguished scientific research of high quality with results oriented."

The university - as an administrative system - regardless of size, structure or maturity, needs to put in place an appropriate administrative framework to ensure its success, and the Excellence Model of the European Foundation for Quality Management is a general, scientific, practical and non-descriptive framework to enable the university to assess its position during the march of excellence and help it understand the points of Its main strength and potential gaps regarding its stated vision and mission, providing a common language and a style of thinking based on results-based management, facilitating the effective exchange of ideas inside and outside the university. The Excellence Model adopted by the King Abdullah II Center for Excellence provides a comprehensive view of the university’s administration and can be used to determine the extent and how the administrative methods used together to achieve the specific goals of the university’s administrative system and to achieve sustainable excellence.

The Distinguished University is defined as the university that strives to achieve impressive levels of performance that meet or exceed the expectations of all stakeholders and seeks to achieve sustainable success through the integration of three main components as follows:

• The basic concepts of excellence as primary principles that represent the basic basis for achieving sustainable excellence for any university.
•  Award criteria as a framework to help the university transform basic concepts into practice.
•  The Radar Assessment Mechanism (RADAR) as a dynamic assessment framework and an effective administrative tool on which the university relies to achieve sustainable excellence.

Award's Objectives

The Official University Distinguished Award aims to:

• Spreading the culture of excellence in the public university and supporting its orientations towards achievement at various levels
• Creating an environment for positive competition between the public university to provide the best services in the field of higher education, scientific research and community service.
• Activating the latent energies, raising the level of performance of university employees, and managing university resources efficiently and effectively
• Providing best practices for official universities to achieve outstanding results and ensure their sustainability in accordance with international excellence models