مركز الاخبار

Under the patronage of HE Dr. Mona Bint Salem Al-Jardaniyah, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research, and Innovation for Vocational Training, The University of Al-Sharqiyah in cooperation with the Ministry of Education held yesterday, Wednesday, a symposium on “Private Lessons in the Sultanate of Oman - Reality, Reasons and Proposals.” The symposium took place at Khasab Hall at the Ministry’s General Diwan’s Theater.

The symposium aimed to present the results and recommendations of research that was applied in the Sultanate of Oman to study the effects of the phenomenon of private lessons, the reasons driving it, and proposals that can be developed as initial solutions to reduce it, in nine diverse and comprehensive research papers, targeting a number of approximately (100) teachers, supervisors, school administrators, academics and parents.

More than five government agencies and private institutions participated in this symposium, represented by (the Ministry of Education and its various directorates and departments, Sultan Qaboos University, the University of Hong Kong, and Al Sharqiyah University). The symposium concluded with a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: the importance of raising community awareness of the danger of spreading these lessons and their negative consequences on different parties and age groups, and the need to prepare international and local workshops and training programs for teachers to improve teaching methods and techniques, reduce students’ resort to private lessons, and benefit from the experiences of some countries in organizing and framing private lessons.

The symposium opened with the Ministry’s speech delivered by Dr. Khalsa Al Bahri, an educational researcher at the Ministry of Education, in which she said: “The organization of this symposium comes from the recent spread of the private lessons phenomenon in a clear and influential way at the national and individual levels, which has affected the course of the educational process and its desired

results. These private lessons are a double-edged sword that costs society what it costs, and also achieves for them what they hope to achieve. This symposium aims to present the results and recommendations of research that has been applied in the Sultanate of Oman on the effects of this phenomenon, and the causes and proposals that can be put forward as initial solutions to reduce this phenomenon.”

Dr. Khalsa Al-Bahri added: “It is worth noting that Al-Sharqiyah University has adopted the idea of this symposium to be one of the intellectual outcomes of its project funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, since parents, students, teachers, and educators in general are the target group. For the purposes of this symposium, reaping its fruits, and disseminating its specialized intellectual and comprehensive cultural knowledge; the Ministry of Education responded to their request to coordinate the symposium, and was honored to invite them to the Ministry and its field partners, including its members and the targets of its message, vision, and educational goals to share with them the results of its research project, which is holding this symposium, in which a number of papers that have been applied in the Sultanate of Oman to study the effects of the phenomenon of private lessons are presented.”

The symposium included holding three sessions, where the first session included papers discussing the research project funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research, and Innovation entitled: Private Lessons and their Educational, Social and Economic Impacts in the Sultanate of Oman, by Dr. Rashid Al Hajri, Assistant Professor in Fundamentals of Education at the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences at Al-Sharqiyah University (team leader), then the main speaker: Professor Dr. Mark Bray, Head of the UNESCO Chair in Comparative Education at the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong, presented a comparative study on the size, nature and effects of private lessons.

In the second session, Dr. Hassan Al Salmi - Associate Professor at the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University, presented a paper entitled: “Private Lessons: Its Reasons and Proposals from the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University.” Dr. Khadija Al Salami, Director-General of Private Schools at the Ministry of Education, presented a paper titled: “Learning Support Centers”, Dr. Salem Al Jabri, an educational expert at the Directorate-General of Education in Al ADhahirah Governorate, presented a paper on “The Reality of Private Lessons in the Sultanate of Oman,” while Dr. Badr Al Kharusi, Capacity Building Advisor to the National Employment Program, presented a paper titled “The Economic Dimension of Private Lessons on "Family."

In the third session, Dr. Muhammad Al-Saqri, Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Al-Sharqiyah University, presented a paper entitled “The Pedagogical Effects of Private Lessons on School Education in the Sultanate of Oman,” and Dr. Abdullah Al-Farsi, Associate Professor of Educational Administration at the College of Arts and Humanities at Al-Sharqiyah University, presented a paper titled “The Social Effects of Private Lessons in the Sultanate of Oman.” Dr. Muhammad Al-Sanani, Head of the Department of Education at the College of Arts and Human Sciences at Al Sharqiyah University, presented a paper titled “The reasons for the spread of private lessons from the point of view of teachers, parents, and students.”