Saturday 20 / April / 2024
Muscat: School systems in Oman were able to transition towards virtual learning soon after they received instructions to temporarily close schools and run classes online.
Following the decision on 14 March by the Ministry of Education to close all educational institutions to stop the spread of COVID-19, schools attempted to make sure the standards of education their students received through online learning was of a similar level to that achieved in classrooms.
The Indian school system, which represents the largest school system primarily attended by expats in Oman, already had some online resources prior to this, and began expanding them once the ministry’s decision had been made.
“There are 21 Indian schools in the Sultanate of Oman, and each of these schools were able to start remote learning in April itself,” said Dr Baby Sam Saamuel, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Indian Schools in Oman. “They were able to use a number of tools to engage with the students directly and to transfer the information to our students.
Indian schools have two in-house learning portals. One is ISO-VLE, an in-house virtual learning platform, which was established by the board in the year 2018, which is available pan-Oman and contains lessons for students from grade IX and upwards. Indian school Muscat also has a similar platform they are currently using.
“There are also a number of other meeting platforms that the schools have been using, such as Microsoft Team, Cisco Webex and Zoom,” he added. “The schools are also using Google Classrooms, and teachers are also using WhatsApp as a means of informal communication with parents.
“Currently, we hold classes for students for about three to four hours per day, with a focus on our core subjects,” said Saamuel. “However, the schools are also exploring options to teach our students our non-core subjects in a holistic manner. This includes our extracurricular and co-curricular activities.”
Over at ABA Oman, a meeting involving all the members of staff – including teachers’ assistants (TAs) was organised so that plans could be made to quickly switch to online learning. Dr Susan Groesbeck, ABA’s Head of School, said each department came up with a plan on how to properly teach their subjects to their students.
These plans were then incorporated into ABA’s online learning framework so that e-classes could run smoothly and cover all aspects of learning. Their online learning platform was set up just a day after their first staff meeting.
“We used – certainly – the ABA Google domain, and engaged Cisco Webex fully,” she explained. “We have a management programme that uses all of the curricular programmes but through Cisco, we were able to videoconferencing – we have a thousand conference users – and I was able to track the teachers and TAs in terms of how many times they were initiating teaching hours.”
She added: “through the Google VOIP and video applications and additional communication tools, the files, folders, resources, websites took subjects and curricula contacts and resources, our students were able to have regular contact and classroom settings since March. This was not anything that was pre-programmed, but constant contact with their classmates, and constant contact with their counsellors, with their arts and music lessons. So it was a full programme of regular schooling, albeit not in the format that they were used to.”
All of the schools in Oman were able to quickly transition towards online learning, the Pakistan School System included. Nasir Nawaz, the system's Principal and Secretary of the Steering Committee, reserved special praise for the principals who oversaw the running of Pakistan schools around the country.
“We have about 6,000 students in our schools,” said Nasir Nawaz, Principal and Secretary of the Steering Committee of the Pakistan School System. “Fortunately we had remained connected with our parents through WhatsApp groups, so when we received the intimation from the Ministry of Education which said schools would remain closed, we immediately informed our parents about this, and told them we would be devising online classes for their students.
“Unfortunately, our teachers are not trained for online teaching, so I have to take my hat off to my principals for doing their job, because within a week’s time, they starting online teaching through Google Classroom and Zoom,” he added.
