Oman’s female illiteracy rate decreased to 5.2% in 2020 from 7.3% in 2016

Muscat – The sultanate has exerted great efforts since 1973/74 to combat illiteracy.

The National Centre for Statistical Information’s (NCSI) data shows there were 1,357,405 females, representing 49.6 per cent of the total Omani population, in December 2020. The governorates of North Batinah and Muscat recorded the highest number of females – 40 per cent – compared to the remaining governorates.

NCSI’s statistics confirmed that the Omani female illiteracy rate dropped to 5.2 per cent in 2020.

The illiteracy rate in the sultanate decreased to 5.78 per cent in the age group of 15 years and older. The literacy rate was 94.22 per cent at the end of 2018.

Making illiteracy a national issue, the Ministry of Education has set up a number of support projects through partnerships between government and private sector institutions. These include the ‘Training Bag Project’ that contains basic scientific material to be used to train teaching staff in literacy classes and raise their professional level and teaching skills.

In the academic year of 2020/2021, the total number of Omani females studying in public schools was 321,690 out of a total of 652,606 (male and female), while the total number of female studies in private schools was 17,127.
Omani females in higher education constituted 53.3 per cent of the total admissions in the academic year 2020/2021, a dip of 3.9 per cent compared to 2015/2016.

The percentage of Omani female graduates from higher education institutions in the academic year 2019/2020 increased by 1.4 per cent compared to 2015/2016.

Women contractors can now sponsor expat male workers

Omani women owning small and medium enterprises (SMEs) engaged in the field of construction can recruit and sponsor an expatriate male workforce, according to an official in the Ministry of Labour (MoL).

“Many female professionals have joined the contracting and interior decoration market recently. They have offices for architectural design, providing engineering consultancy and supervising implementation which require expat labour,” the MoL official told Muscat Daily.

Omani female owners of SMEs must be registered with the Authority of Small and Medium Enterprises Development to conduct their work.