Dalia Fadila

She opened the first of what became a network of private Q schools in Tira in 2008, and by 2016 she had created similar institutions in Nazareth, Jaljulia, Tayibe, East Jerusalem, Ramallah in the West Bank and, in 2012, in the Jordanian capital of Amman. A Ted talk she gave on identity and education caught the attention of Jordanian educators who invited her to set up a school in Amman. Within a decade, her 5 schools had been attended by over 2,000 students. Many American Jewish communities, impressed by her work, have funded scholarships for her poorer students.

The Israeli Ministry of Education suggested she take up a teaching position in Baqa al-Gharbiyye near Haifa, at the Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education. Beginning in 2002, her coursework there included D. H. Lawrence's The Horse Dealer's Daughter, and Alice Walker's Everyday Use. Initially, both teaching staff and students complained that these coming-of-age stories threatened Islamic morals. Her appointment as head of the English Department helped the Qasami Academy secure accreditation as an officially recognized Israeli college. After presiding as dean of the college of over 4,000 students for a year during the chairman's sabbatical, against considerable resistance from male staff, she was appointed head of al-Qasemi's faculty of engineering. During her tenure, the academy raised its enrolment from 100 to 1,000 students, including Jewish community members.

Dalia Fadila (b.1973) is an Arab-Israeli educator. She developed a new curriculum, textbooks and Q schools in Israel and Jordan, which are designed to teach English to Arab schoolchildren.