The Sultanate of Oman has a sound, long-standing policy and a laudable track record in the progress of human resources development through education and training. Evidently, basic education for all is central to human resources development.

In 1996 the Government, in co-operation with key sectors of the economy, critically evaluated the performance of each sector and the progress made during the past 25 years of Oman’s renaissance (the five Five-Year Plans).

In light of the lessons learnt and experience gained, and taking into account the potential of natural resources within the context of emerging global trends, the Omani leadership – assisted by planning economists and technocrats from various sectors – formulated the future vision of Oman’s economy for the year 2020. After long discussions and deliberations over the "Vision" in a national conference attended by invited international economists and planning specialists, "Vision: 2020" was finally approved by Royal Decree.

Human Resources Development is at the heart of the three major strategies considered critical to the realization of the "Vision for Oman’s National Economy: Oman 2020". The Fifth Five-Year Plan was designed to build a solid foundation and to pave the way to realizing the envisaged goal.

Assiduously designed within the framework of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, the comprehensive educational reform and development plan currently being implemented is the first milepost on the road to achieving the ultimate goal of the development of human resources. The radical reform primarily aims to completely modernize basic education in order to improve its content, quality, efficiency, effectiveness and relevance to meet the learning needs of the 21^st century.

There is no doubt that Oman has made impressive progress in the basic education sector. Intensive investment in building up the basic educational infrastructure and national capacity has paid dividends.

Political determination and the commitment of the leadership to implementing the basic education reform plan promise a bright future for basic education.

The experience gained in building partnerships and multisectoral cooperation, social mobilization and community involvement, mobilization of the private sector, institutionalization, decentralization, and the successful implementation of multisectoral programmes and projects is a valuable asset.

All these accomplishments present a bright prospect, and offer vast opportunities to cash in upon these strengths to further enhance the national capacity in various fields, to bridge the gaps, to eliminate certain weaknesses, to fully implement the reform programme and to carry on continuous reform.

However, the successful completion of the comprehensive qualitative reform of basic education, despite the relatively trouble-free implementation of the initial stage, will need much caution.

The key strategies that need to be continuously pursued to guarantee the successful implementation of the reform plan and achievement of the goal of basic education for all – human resources development for improved quality of life – are as follows: sustained effort, continued financial backing, galvanized inter-sectoral cooperation, innovative approaches to combat unexpected obstacles, de-centralized institutionalization of major functions and continuous activities, strengthening of focused research capacity, promotion of data-based decision-making and innovative search for new partners, and further encouragement of the private sector’s involvement in education.

The following are some of the dimensions of Education for All that call for further attention.

In the past, multisectoral maternal and health care, nutrition programmes, and social mobilization strategies have achieved spectacular success, for which Oman has earned world acclaim.

Building on this experience, while sustaining the momentum of the health and social welfare programmes, alternative parallel programmes need to be launched to expand nurseries and KGs to all communities in all regions.

The field of early childhood development and preschool education is open to all to participate in, and only the sky is the limit for development and expansion.

New partnerships should be forged between the Ministries of Education, Social Affairs, Labour and Vocational Training, Health, and Information and various national NGOs – particularly the Omani Women’s Association, concerned international organizations such as UNESCO and UNICEF, and the private sector. With appropriate reinforcement from the Government, the Private Sector and the Women’s Organizations show tremendous potential for expanding nurseries and KGs in all areas.

Again, social mobilization and community-based initiatives would be the key to success in this field.

It is recommended that preschool education be expanded to reach larger numbers of children in all regions through appropriate campaigns, backed by the provision of affordable, community-based, preschool education facilities.

In the field of basic education, the Government has established a solid basic infrastructure. The education system has adequate capacity to accommodate all school-age children, and claims to provide universal access to basic education. Yet in 1997/98, over 35,000 primary school-age children (6–11 years) and over 51,000 basic school-age children (6–14 years) were outside the formal education system.

Evidently, the Ministry makes provisions for schooling all those who are willing to attend schools, but the reality at ground level is that a substantial number of school-age children do not enter schools, and/or drop out before completing their primary or basic education. In the absence of appropriate legislation for compulsory education, free education alone will fall short of achieving the goal of universal primary or basic education.

Sustained concerted effort is needed to raise the primary and preparatory net enrolment rates, and the net intake rate in Grade 1.

Although gender disparity in education seems to be a thing of the past, and in the preparatory cycle female net and gross enrolments have outstripped male enrolments, yet there remains some gender disparity in KG and primary cycle enrolments.

In terms of regional disparity, pre-primary education seems to be limited to the Muscat region and the big cities in the Sultanate. Appropriate policy measures and strategies need to be adopted to expand pre-primary education to all the regions, especially in the rural areas of each region.

There is a fair amount of wastage in terms of repetitions and dropouts, and the Ministry of Education has recently taken a bold step by launching a quality and relevance improvement-focused educational reform plan which will need continued support.

In this respect the following recommendations are made:

f) To eliminate double-shift schools.

There are numerous problems that need to be effectively resolved in the interest of achieving the goals of the educational reform and of Education for All.

Rational policies, strategies and plans of action cannot be formulated in the absence of relevant, reliable and valid information, supplied by problem-focused, rigorously designed analytical research studies.

For instance, objective, reliable and valid information is urgently needed in order to address the issues related to dropout, repetition, adult literacy, integration of children with special learning needs into mainstream schools, student achievement levels, instructional practices, etc. Such information can only be acquired by conducting sample-based, causal-analytical research studies.

Strengthen the research capacity of the Ministry of Education in order to improve the quality, adequacy and effectiveness of policy choices, programme designs and action plans.

The MOE has invested resources and made progress in establishing an Education Management Information System, and conducting a series of MLA studies in co-operation with UNESCO and UNICEF. Top executives are now favourably disposed towards the concept of EMIS as a useful tool for making informed decisions. Building an effective EMIS, however, is a long-term process, which entails successive stages, spread over many years, of critical skills training and capacity building processes, accompanied by concomitant activities that raise awareness, enlist support, promote interest and enhance the skills of the policy-makers, education managers and decision makers at various levels of the educational system.

In the process of de-centralization, EMIS has been introduced in nine regions. Continued support and allocation of resources is needed to further develop these programmes to the level of sustainable maturation. There is, however, a continued need to enhance the national capacity for informed policy-planning, project design and improved educational planning and management decisions.

Since the overall efficiency, effectiveness and quality of the education system pivots on the efficiency and adroitness of the central administration, enhancing the efficiency of the administrative system should be given priority.

In this field, the MOE is engaged in adopting the following strategies.

To conduct a systems analysis of the central and regional level administrational, managerial and organizational structures, channels of communication, information flow; lines of responsibility and the monitoring systems.

1. To restructure and revitalize the administrative system by de- centralization and delegation of authority to make decisions at subordinate levels.
2. To introduce a system of making informed corporate decisions, and effective implementation, follow-up and constructive feedback.
3. To establish standards of performance.
4. To introduce a system of continuous-monitoring evaluation and formative feedback.
5. To introduce effective mechanisms of accountability and incentives.
6. To develop a culture of vertical as well as horizontal communication, coordination, cooperation and information flow.
7. To establish a culture of institutional and organizational learning and self-analysis.

The adult literacy programme needs to be revitalized. In this respect the following recommendations are made:

1. To conduct an adult literacy survey and situation analysis to establish the extent, parameters and causal factors associated with the problem.
2. To remobilize resources and design, and implement new innovative multisectoral adult literacy, education and job-skills development programmes in the context of the social and economic conditions of different communities.

In this field, the following strategies are recommended:

1. To develop new partnerships and muster resources.
2. To conduct a detailed scientific analysis of the problem from all aspects.
3. To launch social mobilization and awareness raising campaigns.
4. To strengthen and support the laudable ongoing community-based rehabilitation programme of the Al Wafa Voluntary Social Centres For Childhood Disability.
5. To develop a scientific system of diagnosis of various types of disabilities and special learning needs of children.
6. To implement the strategy of integrating children with special learning needs into mainstream schools.
7. To incorporate the content and methodology of the education of children with special learning needs into the teacher education programme.
8. To establish an in-service teacher training programme in creating a learning environment in the mainstream classroom setting for students with special learning needs.

In all the aspects of human resources development and achieving the goal of education for all, the Arab Gulf states have a lot in common. There is tremendous potential for bilateral and multilateral partnerships within a country, and with other PanArab countries and international organizations.

Bilateral and multilateral partnerships, mutual co-operation, and the sharing of experience and expertise among all Arab states, and among the Arab Gulf states in particular, needs to be further enhanced. New modalities of creative partnerships, collaboration and co-operation need to be explored for the mutual benefit of all parties. Each country has something special to offer, just as each country has a lot to gain by sharing their unique experiences, expertise with others.

Venues and organizations of cooperation are already in place. What is needed is to introduce effective mechanisms of sharing experience and expertise with others, and learning from the experience of others.

To sum up, the existing educational infrastructure; the ongoing comprehensive long-term educational reform programme; cumulative past experience in forging partnerships mobilizing resources and successfully implementing multisectoral national programmes, all of these taken together set an ideal stage for the continued capacity building, reinforcement, revitalization and improvement of current projects and activities, and the launch of the new innovative initiatives needed to realize the Omani Vision: 2020 of human resources development.