Shaikha Al-Mansoori

Shaikha Ibrahim Mohammed Al-Mansoori is Head of the Supervision and Support Department within the School Affairs Department at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and an educational leader whose career progressed from teaching and guidance to school leadership.

Born in Al Rayyan in 1963, she grew up in an extended family led by her paternal grandmother. Four daughters arrived before the long-awaited first son, and the family eventually comprised six girls and four boys. Her father met hardship with patience and perseverance; her mother devoted unflagging energy to the household. From both, she inherited endurance and a strong sense of responsibility towards family.

The household brought parents, uncle, aunt and grandparents together. Her grandmother was its natural leader, gathering relatives around affection and shared values. Directions the young girl sometimes resisted later revealed themselves as lessons in leadership and cohesion, and the grandmother remained the home’s central pillar until her death in 1991.

The Al Rayyan neighbourhood gave her enduring friendships. Saadia shared her fascination with mathematics, while Zahra encouraged the neighbourhood’s girls and later became a valued colleague in educational guidance. At home, her uncle Abdullah’s carefully chosen books from Egypt and Lebanon awakened a love of reading, reinforced by her teacher Anisa Al-Hitmi. Government schools in New and Old Al Rayyan provided her primary education and teachers who shaped principles and curiosity as much as academic knowledge.

Her husband Abdul Rahman, known as Abu Saud, broadened her view of life and supported her studies and work. Their son Saud gave her the experience of motherhood that accompanied her leadership of pupils and teachers, whom she also approached with care and guidance.

After secondary school, she entered Qatar University on a teaching scholarship. Education had not been her original ambition, but the route developed her abilities and began a career in which self-improvement and service became inseparable. As a teacher, she treated every pupil as a seed whose growth justified the effort invested in it.

In 1991, she was selected for the first group of teachers appointed to educational guidance. Attachment to her school, pupils and colleagues initially made her resist the move. Fawzia Al-Kuwari, a lifelong friend, persuaded her to attend the interview and helped her understand that a committed educator’s contribution need not be confined to one school or role.

Guidance work and training at the rehabilitation centre strengthened the skills she later brought to the developed-school project. After exacting tests and interviews, she joined the initiative with support from Farida Al-Obaidly and the late Minister of Education, Shaikha Al-Mahmoud. As Principal of Moza Bint Mohammed Developed School, she led one of only two institutions then serving children from early childhood and kindergarten through Year Three. It became the foundation for the later Moza Bint Mohammed kindergarten, primary and preparatory schools.

The school built systems across staffing, curricula, scientific and action research, educational music, theatre, swimming and institutional policy. Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser praised its distinction during a visit. Establishing carefully planned change was difficult, but the approach produced pupils, teachers and administrators whose later achievements continued the school’s influence.

Particular attention went to investigative science and scientific and action research. Training programmes and meetings often continued beyond normal hours, and the school won second place in Qatar’s first scientific-research competition. That result began a record of advanced positions for Moza Bint Mohammed schools.

Environmental education, conservation and sustainable development also became part of school life. Work with UNESCO and the ‘For Every Spring a Flower’ programme brought shields and certificates. A social worker, Aisha Shaheen Al-Kuwari, gave each pupil a plant to tend daily; a visiting Japanese delegation praised the commitment, and the practice strengthened both attendance and respect for the environment.

The school reinforced its values through a book entitled ‘The Secret of My Happiness Is that I Love God’, implemented with the late school nurse Fikreya Bassiouni. The ‘Direct Your Destination’ initiative took the school to the United States. Under Mervat Al-Nasser, pupils performed a chant based on the Most Beautiful Names of God and represented Moza Bint Mohammed through the Qatar Choir at national forums and radio programmes. The ‘Khotwa’ programme helped university students and those outside higher education begin their professional paths.

‘Teach Me How to Learn’ focused on pupils who found reading difficult and aimed to raise academic standards. The principal explained lessons personally, encouraged the children to read every available text and rewarded the greatest progress in learning and memorisation.

Educational reform later moved the developed schools into the independent-school system, a transition she accepted despite reservations. In 2008, at the request of the late Minister of Education Shaikha Al-Mahmoud, Moza Bint Mohammed Preparatory School opened as an extension of the primary school. Arabic and English debating teams, guided by Najah Jadu and Nadia Fattouh, achieved advanced positions.

The staff remained committed to learning. Najah Abu Shanab supported pupils academically and financially through programmes such as the ‘Al-Khamis Fund’, which introduced economics, saving and financial development. Charitable Ramadan activities fostered collective responsibility, and the administrative team implemented electronic management across the schools.

Her leadership principles included choosing accomplished, creative colleagues; maintaining an open management policy; learning from mistakes; analysing issues from a broad ‘hawk’ or helicopter view; expanding individual responsibility; supplying the information needed for each task; recognising good work; and building a sense of active belonging rather than mere physical presence.

The school remained her daily priority to the extent that she completed a specialist diploma in education but postponed postgraduate study because she believed the institution needed her more. Fast-Forward, an English-language development company, honoured her as the first Arab woman to enter its laboratories in Boston. A distance-learning programme led by Maryam Al-Rashidi connected teachers and parents from the school’s laboratories and their homes with the company’s headquarters, helping the school secure one of the highest levels of participation and English-language results.

A brain haemorrhage suffered by her mother while preparing for Umrah eventually required her to leave Moza Bint Mohammed and create space for colleagues she had helped develop. She moved to her present role as Head of the Supervision and Support Department at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The relationships endured: Hessa Al Suwaidi and Lina Al Buainain, colleagues she regarded as daughters of the heart, continued to return the care and loyalty she had shown them.