Oman is planning a comprehensive overhaul of rules and regulations governing the status of teachers in order to enhance the education profession as well as the social status of teachers. The aim is also to examine the challenges facing the teaching profession, propose ways to overcome it, and set a time frame for its implementation. 

The overhaul of regulations are being discussed as part of the study ‘The Status and Future of Teachers in the Sultanate’ by the Education and Research Committee of the State Council.  

The committee, hosted H E Dr Abdullah Mohammed al Sarmi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) and several officials of the ministry, met on Monday to ponder over the restructuring of the education profession in the sultanate under the framework of this study.

The meeting was headed by Mohammed bin Hamdan bin Sulaiman al Toobi, committee head, and held in the presence of the committee members and secretariat staff employees in the meeting hall of the Council of Oman.

The committee discussed with H E Sarmi and ministry officials the legislations related to selection, qualification, appointment, promotions and acceptance ratios for college admissions. The committee also discussed on-the-job training programmes and plans for the teachers, ethics and values of the teaching profession and laws regulating it, in addition to informing about education policies and strategies.

It is worth noting that the Education Committee’s study aims to review the mechanisms for selecting, preparing, training, operating and motivating teachers and proposing ways to develop them, reviewing the current legislation and laws regulating the education profession, and proposing new legislations that guarantee upgrading the education profession and the social status of teachers.

It also aims to examine the challenges facing the teaching profession, propose ways to overcome it and set a time frame for its implementation. 

In addition, it proposes to come up with recommendations and results in support of efforts aimed at developing the educational process through upgradation of the level of performance of its most important component – the teacher.

The delegation of the ministry included DrAbdullah Ali al Shibli, director general of the Colleges of Applied Sciences, Jokha bint Abdullah al Shekaili, assistant director general of Private Colleges and Universities, Dr Halima Bint Saleh al Badawi, assistant director general for Academic Affairs at the General Directorate of Colleges of Applied Sciences and Dr Ahmed bin Juma al Riyami, assistant director general for Academic Affairs Support at the General Directorate of Colleges of Applied Sciences.