Tuesday 16 / April / 2024
Muscat: With the objective to create employment opportunities for the citizens of the country, Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) and Bank Muscat have joined hands together to provide Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) training and job opportunities.
During the signing ceremony held at Bank Muscat’s head office on Tuesday, H.E Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasir Al Bakri, Minister of Manpower, commended the private sector initiatives which translate the government direction in human resources development.
“The banking and oil and gas fields are leading in national employment initiatives and the agreement between Bank Muscat and PDO to provide vocational training and employment to 50 Omani youth marks a unique partnership initiative,” Al Bakri said.
He also urged the private sector to participate in various government programmes to develop human resources as well as support job seekers to take advantage of such training programmes.
On this occasion, Sheikh Waleed Al Hashar, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Bank Muscat said that they are very pleased with the unique partnership initiative with PDO to enhance the role of both institutions.
“The joint initiative to support Omani youth acquire internationally recognised qualifications as well as job opportunities reflects the commitment of both institutions to human resources development in Oman. Stemming from the directive of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said for creation of jobs, the initiative comes as part of the Corporate Social Responsibility and commitment of Bank Muscat to talent development and youth empowerment,” Al Hashar added.
In this regard, 50 Bachelor degree holders will be selected for the programme to receive vocational training in the fields of finance and accounting leading to ACCA qualification, funded by PDO.
“This is the first time that we have partnered with any banking sector in Oman and we believe this partnership with Bank Muscat will provide job opportunities to the locals who are looking to work in this sector,” said Amer Al Rahbi, Training Assurance Advisor National Objectives at PDO.
“We are targeting to qualify Omani graduates to work according to the needs of the employers in the banking sector, and ACCA qualification is highly required in this sector and there is a big scope for Omanis to work with this certificate.
“Therefore, we will provide extensive training for 18 months at Bank Muscat itself through an institute based in the UK, and after the successful completion of the training, jobs will be provided at Bank Muscat in various departments,” Al Rahbi said.
He added that the National Objective Programme at PDO started in 2011 initially to support internally contractors and to support Omani job seekers to be qualified to join the private sector.
“Until today we have provided more than 55,000 jobs through direct hiring and training for employment programme. The skills we were targeting were mainly technical like mechanics, electricians, etc., but now we are also targeting non-technical skills,” Al Rahbi said.
