The Oman Qualification Framework (OQF) can be defined as a comprehensive, integrated, and mandatory framework that includes qualifications from all public and private sectors of education and training in Oman.
The Higher Education Council issued the first version of the OQF in 2005. However, the framework is expected to consider the international best practices in building and classifying all Omani national qualifications. Because of that, the wholly modified second version of the OQF was approved in 2022.
Internationally, more than 150 countries, including Bahrain and the UAE, have adopted national qualifications frameworks.
In the Sultanate of Oman, the Oman Authority for Academic Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Education (OAAAQA) acts as the governance body of the OQF.
The OQF has different pathways of qualifications related to schooling, academic, technical, vocational, technical, and technological.
These pathways have many objectives namely quickly identifying the gaps related to the assessment, quality assurance requirements, recognising the foreign qualifications, and helping to adopt lifelong learning.
In addition, the OQF includes ten levels of education, starting from schooling (level one) to the doctoral degree (level ten).
For example, the General Educational Diploma is equivalent to level 4, and Bachelor’s Degree is equivalent to level 8. There are three learning bands namely Access, Schooling, and ‘Higher Education. The idea behind identifying these bands is to continue improving the contents of the learning programmes and align them with future changes in advanced technology of learning.
Additionally, the OQF recognised prior learning so that the learner will not lose any credited hours or experiences gained previously that can be considered as prior learning.
The OQF was developed using an innovative approach that helps to identify the competencies needed to be acquired by the learners and help them to improve their learning outcomes. The learning outcomes have many advantages and determine the learning gained at a specific level.
In addition, the student can continue with one educational pathway or move to a different field of study, assuring him the continuity of lifelong learning. The other benefit of the learning outcomes is to differentiate between the level of knowledge the learner acquires depending on the qualification, for example, Diploma, Bachelor, and Master degrees.
Furthermore, applying the framework lies in listing the qualifications in the National Register of Qualifications (NRQ).
An online system will record all nationally recognised qualifications programmes or degrees that must be listed in the NRQ.
The OAAAQA will provide intensive training for all schools and Higher Education institutions (HEIs) that are mandatory and requested by the law to list their qualifications.
The re-listing must occur again after the students graduate from a previously listed programme to ensure the components of the programmes and learning outcomes remain in place or need to be modified.
This could affect the programme contents, teaching hours, and evaluation methods used in all years, which contributes to refining the learner or graduate with the skills and competencies required for the labour market. The listing procedures contribute to academic programmes' readiness to obtain a programme accreditation from the OAAAQA or international organisation bodies.
The procedures for listing the qualifications in the NRQ started in June. At that time, HEIs in Oman could not offer educational programmes that ended with an academic qualification unless they fulfilled the listing requirements.
This restriction could be seen as taking away the autonomy granted to HEIs in developing their academic programmes. However, on the other hand, adopting such a procedure is expected to evaluate the current educational programmes and align their suitability with international best practices.
The OAAAQA body is working to benefit from the accumulative experiences and observations gained by conducting institutional accreditation.
However, some HEIs suffered from not passing the institutional accreditation in a granted period, and, therefore, the process of the NRQ will be a positive refinement step forward.
In the meantime, observers and academic staff are expected that the new OQF will require additional administrative workloads and financial resources.
To sum up, including all diversity qualifications in the NRQ will contribute to building a national framework with the highest standards in management, governance, and quality assurance processes that will make the OQF more robust and solid.
Ultimately, this will lead to designing and classifying the national qualifications awarded by HEIs as comparable to the international best practice.
@HumaidBusaidi
The writer is an expert at Sultan Qaboos University
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