Students in Oman say their qualifications are sufficient to enter the labour market

Muscat: ​About 62 per cent of students in Oman have said that their qualifications are enough to land them in jobs, according to a youth orientation survey done by the National Centre for Statistics Information (NCSI).
Conducted in the third quarter of 2016, the survey says that seven out of 10 higher education students prefer to work in the government sector. The percentage of female students preferring the sector is about 81 per cent, while the percentage of males is 51 per cent.
Overall, stability, job security, good salary and incentives have been found to be the most important factors for young people looking for jobs.
Students of natural and medical sciences Social, legal, religious and arts sciences are most likely to get hired by the government sector.
The results of the survey showed that half of the youth are willing to work in the private sector if the salary is 25 per cent higher than that of the government sector. About 47 per cent are willing to work in the private sector, if the salary is 50 per cent higher than that of the government sector.
The results also indicate that 70.7 per cent of students in universities and colleges abroad prefer to work in the private sector if the sector's salary is 25 per cent higher than in the government sector.
The average acceptable minimum wage for employment in the private sector was OMR908, compared to OMR886 in 2015, whereas in the public sector it stood at OMR857 in 2016, compared to OMR830 in 2015.
The results of the survey indicate that 62 per cent of the students believe that their qualification useful and sufficient to get a job, showing a 9 per cent fall from the prior year.
For the third year in a row, students think limited practical training as the most important drawback in scientific qualification, with 45 per cent of the respondents agreeing.
Students at the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), various technical colleges, universities, private colleges, universities and colleges abroad consider the limited practical training to be the most important negative aspect in scientific qualification, while students at health institutes believe that poor English is the most important drawback that hinders their entry into the labor market.
About 76 per cent believe that competition from expatriates negatively affects their chances of finding a job. About 2 out of every 5 students in higher education believe that the presence of expatriate labor in the current numbers is more or less detrimental to the Omani economy.
The survey showed that the search for work is the most important future plan for 55 per cent of students of higher education after course completion, as against 21 per cent who believe that going for a higher qualification outside the Sultanate is the major plan.