Vaccination to ensure safe return of students to schools

Staff Reporter

Muscat, Sept 18

The Sultanate’s schools will see some students returning to classes on Sunday in the new academic year (2021-2022), which started last week with teaching and non-teaching staff resuming duties.

The number of students is expected to be 702,658, which is an increase of 24,299 students, across 1,204 government schools.

Dr Madeeha bint Ahmed al Shaibaniyah, Minister of Education, congratulated students, teachers and administration staff on the new school year.

“Within the framework of the national campaign for immunisation against Covid-19, and in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the vaccination of a high percentage of teaching, administrative and supervisory staff and school workers has been completed, as well as the vaccination of the target group of students aged 12 years and over. The ministry is continuing the vaccination in coordination with the Ministry of Health.”

Dr Abdullah bin Khamis Ambosaidi, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Education, said, “The ministry has endeavoured during the past year to overcome the challenges that prevented classroom education in person —despite the difficulty and severity of the situation — in a manner that guarantees the safety of our students, our fellow teachers, and all those working in the educational field by providing other alternatives to achieve the educational process through the application of blended learning, e-learning and distance education. It was important to benefit from that experience to achieve the greatest possible success during this school year 2021/2022.

“The ministry has developed the general framework for operating schools which serves as a road map that guides those in charge of the educational process in how to provide educational services to our students in a safe manner. The document included general pillars for operating schools, including precautionary measures and vaccination, the operating system of public schools, training, educational platforms and teaching content, learning and social-emotional learning, mechanisms for operating specialised special education schools, supplementary integration classes, special education programmes, and the operation of private schools. I hope that our school year will be a year full of achievements, full of contributions from all those working in the educational field, with the support of the students’ parents who are the ministry’s support in the educational process.”

Majid bin Said al Bahri, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Education in charge of Administrative and Financial Affairs, said, “During the last period, the ministry completed the procedures for appointing 2,954 teachers who passed the written exams and personal interviews for this academic year. The ministry is striving to equip and operate Mandhara and the Google Classroom platform to provide digital education on an ongoing basis, with some aspects of improvement and development in their services during the current academic year in addition to implementing the educational broadcasting project in partnership with the Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) to broadcast these educational lessons on a daily basis, by preparing about 22 interactive classes equipped with the necessary tools for educational broadcasting, in addition to continuing to provide electronic services throughout the academic year.”