More than three quarters of kids in Oman go to government schools

Muscat: The average number of students in a school has reached 426 students, with 26 students in a class and a teacher for every 11 students, according to the latest data released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
The data is an indication of positive trend in the educational system of the Sultanate.
The educational statistics bulletin showed that the total number of students in the Sultanate’s schools at different stages during the 2017/2018 academic year reached 770,481 in 1,808 schools. These schools comprised 29,406 classes, with the number of teachers at 69,427.
About 75.4 per cent of the total students in the country were enrolled in government schools, reaching 581,180. Students enrolled in private schools comprised 13.7 per cent of the total students of the Sultanate, reaching 105,680.
The international schools (Foreign Communities) include 63,467 students, which is 8.2 per cent of the total students in the country. Other government schools, which include Islamic institutions and schools of Royal Guard of Oman, Royal Air Force of Oman, Royal Oman Police and the centres of the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, Children’s corners in Omani Women Associations, have 19,619 students, which is 2.6 per cent of total students of the Sultanate, the NCSI data showed.
The highest ratio of students in the Sultanate’s schools are in the basic education second cycle in Grads (5-10) category, reaching 302,615 students, of whom 155,094 are males and 147,521 are females. This is 39.3 per cent of the total students of the country.
In addition to this, 32.1 per cent of the 247,742 students are included in the basic education first cycle in Grads (1-4) category. They included 125,903 males and 121,839 females. About 11.1 per cent of the students are in the eleventh and twelfth grades (Post - Basic education), with the number reaching 85,201, including 43,317 males and 41,884 females.
According to the data released by NCSI, kindergartens have 79,510 students, which comprises 10.3 per cent of the total students. They include 39,817 male and 39,693 female students. About 7.2 per cent of students are included in the other stages of education, which include general education for grades (1 – 12) in international schools (Foreign Communities) and schools of the Royal Guard of Oman and Islamic institutes.
On the other hand, the number of students in private education schools inside and outside the Sultanate reach 566, including 334 boys and 232 girls. The number of students in the Sultanate reached 535 students and those outside the Sultanate reached 31 students.
The number of students in the literacy centres of the Sultanate reached 6,379, with majority of them being female students totalling 6,187. The number of students in adult education centres was 9,592, with majority of them being male students, reaching 7,332 students compared to 2,260 female students, the data revealed.