Muscat – H E Dr Madiha bint Ahmed al Shaibaniya, Minister of Education, issued a ministerial decision to form a joint committee from the Ministries of Education and Social Development to implement the recent royal directive to provide school supplies and meals for government school students from low-income families.

An official statement said the committee will be jointly headed by Dr Abdullah bin Khamis Ambusaidi, Undersecretary for Education at the Ministry of Education and Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmed al Shamsi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Social Development. The team will also have officials from both ministries.

The committee will initiate coordination between the stakeholders in the relevant authorities on identifying the targeted students for the initiative. The team must complete the work within two weeks and submit a comprehensive report to the Minister of Education and the Minister of Social Development, it stated.

The Ministry of Education confirmed that the number of beneficiaries of the royal attention of His Majesty the Sultan reached 59,030 male and female students from all governorates of the Sultanate of Oman distributed between the social insurance category (24,665) and low income category (34,365).

The ministry also confirmed that students would return to schools on September 4.