Utrecht, 25 January 2025 - Today, the Education Ambassador Award was presented at the National Education Exhibition (NOT) in Royal Jaarbeurs. This award was presented for the first time in April 2024 to then prime minister Mark Rutte for his merits as an ongoing active teacher for Dutch education. The award consists of a slate on which the title Ambassador of Education 2025 is written in classic clean script.
Referring to previous ambassador Mark Rutte, who unfortunately could not be present, jury chairman Alexander Rinnooy Kan awarded the second slate to Jasper Rijpma.
Jasper is a history/big thinker teacher at Hyperion in Amsterdam and was voted Teacher of the Year in 2014. In 2017, he was among the top 50 nominees for the World Teacher Prize. He managed to successfully complete a large application (Groeikracht) to the National Growth Fund which now enables many schools to work on educational improvement, and published the book "Education as a craft" together with Henk Sissing.
In 2020, Jasper was diagnosed with metastatic skin cancer. Nevertheless, he remains undiminished active as a teacher and education reformer. Much impressed was his recently published book "What I still want to tell you", in which he imparts some important life lessons to his daughter in sixteen letters. Recently, he also launched the project Lesboeren in which he portrays twelve special teachers.
Throughout his impressive career, Jasper has been a true ambassador for education. In giving him this award, the jury confirms its great admiration for his sustained commitment and vigour.
