Educational Reform in Oman: System and Structural Changes

*Ramzi Nasser*

### **Abstract**

This chapter gives a historical perspective of the Sultanate of Oman educational developments: system and structural wide changes. The significant and structural changes were on the basis of creating a basic and post-basic education. Structural changes within the Ministry included the establishment of the directories throughout the different states. System wide changes included a complete overhaul of the curriculum leading to a more practice-based and attuned to the work place and pedagogical approaches. The Ministry gave each state in Oman a level of autonomy to its directories. The greatest challenges facing the Ministry of Education and it's reform is bringing the educational outcomes to a level that are benchmarked to international standards and Omani students able to draw on the twenty-first century and technological skills to operate in a globally connected world. The chapter finally concludes on the most pressing challenges to face them and increase student outcomes.

**Keywords:** educational reform, Oman, history of education, basic education post basic education, educational systems, educational structures

#### **1. Historical background**

Formal education in Oman could be said to have started in the 1930s, under the reign of Sultan Said bin Taimur who is the father of the current Sultan of Oman (Sultan Qaboos); one of the teachers of Sultan Said bin Taimur is known by Sheikh Ahmed bin Sulaiman bin Zahran al-Riyami. He taught the Holy Quran, Arabic and arithmetic, and is known as the "father" of education in Oman [1]. Education was predominantly imputed by the Islamic establishment where religion, Arabic language, and arithmetic were taught in mosques and private homes. One of the first schools in Oman was established in Muscat in 1871 (now the capital of Sultanate of Oman) known by the Al Zawawi School in Al-Khor Mosque next to Al Jalali Fort. The school was run by the Imam of the Mosque, who taught the Holy Quran, the fundamentals of religion, and Arabic language including reading, writing, grammar, and rhetoric. Other well-known schools which opened their doors to Omani students were the Alrahyal School established by Mahnon Ben Alrahyal in Sohar and the Bayada Balrstak mosque and Aldharh School in Bahla and the Alqalah School in Nizwa. Formal education started to take shape [1].

The earliest school was the Masjid Al-Khor in Muscat which opened in 1871 and closed its doors in 1988. There was also Beit Al-Wakeyel School, and the Sheikh Rashid Bin Aziz Alkasibi School was one of the oldest schools that opened in 1888 for government employees. Later in 1914 came the Bothiynah School which

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carried the name after Mohamed Ali Bouzaiene, who came from Tunisia to Oman under the reign of Sultan Said bin Taimur. The school was open for girls and boys and attended in a rented house in Muscat. The school taught the Quran, Arabic language, history, geography, and arithmetic. The school also adopted a study plan that included six classes per day, and its student enrollment did not exceed 120 students; most of the students were accommodated in common and large rooms for males and females [1].

The semi-formal schooling started in the mid-1930s, with the first known by Nader Ben Faisal School which opened its doors in 1932; at the same time, many nonformal schools were opened which taught the Holy Quran, Arabic, and arithmetic. Beginning of the last century, the Al-Saidiyyah School in Muscat opened in 1940 as a semi-public school. The Al-Saidiyyah School included classrooms, administration, and teachers' rooms. It consisted of two stages: the first was a two-year primary school and the second was a six-year primary school. Al-Saidiyyah schools were very popular in which they accommodated for a large student body and had a curriculum attuned with the national educational goals. The school was staffed by teachers from Arab countries and some Omani teachers. The Al-Saidiyyah schools were limited to the study of the Quran and teaching matters of religion, as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic (collection, subtraction, multiplication, and division). The mathematics, science, history, geography, and Arabic language curriculum they used was available from Lebanon. The second and third Al-Saidiyyah schools where in the Muttrah region, administratively located in the Muscat province and Salalah (further point in the south of the country), respectively [2]. The school and its branches continued to grow substantially and developed in 1955, to be able to relocate to its own premises. The large part of schooling was driven by an Islamic educational framework fathered by the likes of Al-Sahabi Al-Jalil Mazin Bin-Ghodouba and Al-Jalandi Bin Masoud—these schools mainly taught the Koran with classical subjects as arithmetic, Arabic, and geography. There were also religious schools in Muscat such as Masjed Al-Khod and Madrasat Al-Zwawiah—both schools taught religion and Arabic [3].

The Al-Saidiyyah School in Muttrah moved to its own building in 1960; in the same year two other third and fourth primary schools were opened. Within 2 years, the primary level was completed until the sixth grade and the graduates obtained the primary certificate. Despite the school's modest and limited resources, they have been credited being citadels of cultural and intellectual movements in the Sultanate and enriching the Omani heritage and culture. The educational development in Oman was centered around population centers with critical masses and mostly around Muscat. Not later than the 1970s had Oman experienced substantive growth in the development of the educational sector with the discovery the oil and gas (which drives the modern day economy). The development was mostly located around the center of commerce of the Muscat region as well as Muttrah which has now the largest sea port in the region [4].

The growth in the educational sector started in 1970 at that time the number of students did not exceed 900 and in mere 5 years there were 207 schools with 55,752 students [5]. In 1986, there were 588 schools and 218,914 students enrolled; at the end of 2015, there were 56,211 teachers and 523,522 students. Till today, Oman had provided free education and encouraged every child to enroll in a school. As of 2017, there were 565,184 students in schools; there were also 1091 schools offering what is currently known as the basic education programs and post-basic education of grade 11 and 12 programs. The school staff serving these schools amounted to 60,165 [1, 6, 7]. Added to that, the private education sector has also grown tremendously with over 486 private schools in 2015, serving more than 97,465 students [7].

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*Educational Reform in Oman: System and Structural Changes*

The major educational challenges in Oman were several, among the first was the long distances between population densities. The country was geographically spread over thousands of miles apart with two population centers one in the North (Muscat—now capital) and the second in the South (Salalah region, respectively) and small villages spread across Oman's mountainous terrain. It was thus hard to provide the basic infrastructural services as roads and electricity; it was also hard to find the human resources to support teachers and administrators in distant villages. The challenges were concrete and tangible particularly in improving the quality of the teaching and learning process as well as the quality of student outcomes in an

Second, with Oman being linguistically, ethnically, and religiously diverse; preservation of tradition, culture and language and concomitantly to move forward in its educational mission in face of a fast changing world was a major challenge. Thus, in unifying the country as an Arab speaking and part of the Islamic world, the reform has stressed and celebrated its cultural heritage, its diverse cultural tradition, religion and languages. Third, on seeing the changes the world has gone through in the last decade, particularly in the integration of technology in education, and the way technology has changed the school, curriculum, or even the delivery of instruction, schools in many parts of Oman were left behind to deal with the technological changes. The reform thus, stressed on modernizing the school infrastructure and technological practices. Oman's national strategy was to establish a modern society having a solid infrastructure for education and economy, being able to engage with the technological advances in an advanced and technologically driven world. The Ministry of Education also underlined and stressed on the scientific approach in teaching and in the acquisition of knowledge to move society forward, innovate, and reproduce itself scientifically. Thus, education was seen to have a perennial purpose in instilling the intellectual skills and knowledge acquisition of life skills for citizenship and life-long learning. The objective of these strategies was to build a holistic Omani character, able to deal with the current and future challenges, and engage in the making of important—objective and scientific approaches to deal with the modern

Fourth, a major challenge facing Omani graduates from secondary schools was their inability to deal with the complexity of everyday life. Thus, this included the ability to analyze and solve problems and being flexible, accommodative, and self-directed [9]. Also, alluding to the work of Wagner, Kegan, Lahey, Lemons, Garnier, Helsing, Howell, and Rasmussen [10], it was suggested the three Rs, rigor, relevance, and respect, were generally missing in Omani schools. Rigor means the ability to do and be able to perform due to their learning, relevance as it relates to what they learn for the future. Respect means the ability to deal with others and adequately respect one another in different context. This has also imputed a new way of thinking and seeing of the new curriculum and how teachers deal with knowledge, the curriculum, and how it is translated to students. It also allowed for the reconceptualization of what school outcomes fit with twenty-first century goals, as to reflect on programs that can prepare students and make them understand the world around them. The impetus also suggested that education is tied to social change, reaching beyond the limits attained by a process in which teachers and students transform their work into productive elements in society and also engage

Fifth, Oman like other Gulf states relies heavily on an expatriate work force. With low levels of Omani human capacity, fulfilling jobs in brick and mortar industries, Omanis on a general level have greater reliance on "external-foreign"—cheap

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84913*

information-driven world [8].

and the technological age [8].

in the social or economic transformation of the nation.

**2. Challenges in the educational sector**
