A gateway for students in Oman to pick diverse courses

Oman Sunday 14/April/2019 20:21 PM
By: Times News Service
A gateway for students in Oman to pick diverse courses

Muscat: Oman’s Ministry of Education aims to broaden education opportunities to provide students with the specialised courses and range of choices that they need to succeed.
Explaining the Ministry of Higher Education’s direction, Hamad Khalfan Al Harthy, Deputy Director General of Scholarships at the Ministry exclusively told Times of Oman, “We always encourage students to study something that they are passionate about, because the love of a specialisation can increase the chances of successful studies. At the same time, studying something you do not love can hold you back. We try to make students realise the freedom of choice while, at the same time, guide him or her with useful information.”
Asked about whether the current generation of high school students need a diverse educational field, Dr. Abdullah Al Sarmi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education, said, “Yes. The Global Higher Education Expo (Ghedex) offers more than 120 universities this year, which represent different countries whether they speak English, such as the USA, Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Canada, or other languages. Students who visit this expo will be able to access a large number of universities and diverse specialisations that have places for them.”
“The variety of universities and ways of teaching has to be useful to the student,” he added.
“Diversity is good, rather than focusing on one country’s way of doing things, it is good to have students travel to other places. They gain different ideas and, especially for Omanis, they can come back from where they studied and help their country’s growth with their different experiences and ideas. For example, Business Studies in the USA is different from other countries, and so students who study abroad bring innovative ideas back with them. This is what we see with SMEs in Oman, and it is why we encourage students to apply to various countries and universities with different methods.”
“Thankfully, we see that students do choose different majors from one another. It’s not about them all flocking to one major that they think is best.”
This came during the opening of the and the Technology Education and Vocational Training Expo (Trainex) on 14 April at the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre, inaugurated by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education.
All the universities that Times of Oman spoke to agreed that it is much more important for students to study their passion than to try and predict the labour market and study something that might improve their chances to gain a job.
Each university system has come up with a way to address the demand from students for different styles of teaching.
In Oman, Muna Al Sinawi, from Muscat University’s marketing section, said, “Muscat University offers three bachelors courses, all which suit the job market: Logistics, Chemical Engineering, and Accounting and Administration. During the third year of the chemical engineering programme, the student trains for one year at PDO to gain experience, then completes his or her fourth year. This gives our students a degree as well as a full year of experience.
“We hope to increase the number of our International Students,” she added, “and we offer 40% grants to students with good marks.”
Fozzil Jaffar, Regional Manager of Murdoch University in Australia, said “When it comes to students having specific needs, we have a suite of 200 specialisations that they can choose from. I always tell students: it’s all about your passion. We have work integrated learning, where we will incorporate an internship into your programme.”
Raewyn Castle, International Relationships Manager at AUT University in New Zealand, thinks that New Zealand’s universities try to cater to different students. “I’m not sure if I see it as a competitive market in New Zealand,” she said. “I think students should go where best they are suited. Especially because New Zealand is a small country, so I think it’s holistic.”
According to the Ministry of Manpower, its colleges of technology feature “studies of the labour market, where the market is constantly surveyed to identify the qualifications and specialisations needed in the curriculum, assessments at the college itself, and on-job training.”