Wednesday 13 / November / 2024
Muscat: The Oman Academic Accreditation Authority (OAAA), will launch the National System for Evaluating School Performance in the Sultanate of Oman on December 2, 2024.
Her Excellency Dr. Jokha bint Abdullah Al Shukaili, CEO of the Oman Academic Accreditation Authority and Quality Assurance of Education, said during the media meeting held at the Authority's headquarters that the launch of the system comes in line with the Authority's responsibilities and competencies regarding the Authority's "establishment of a national system to ensure the quality of school and higher education in the Sultanate of Oman, ensuring that it continues to maintain the level that achieves international standards, and encouraging educational institutions to build their internal systems to ensure quality."
Her Excellency added that the Authority's launch of this national system comes within a comprehensive strategy to enhance the efficiency of school education institutions, whether governmental or private, through accurate review processes and comprehensive reports that contribute to improving school performance, based on a set of standards and indicators that must be met.
Al Shukaili stressed that the Authority was keen to develop these standards and indicators that are consistent with national goals and visions, skills and competencies, and are required by the labor market and the changes that the educational arena is constantly witnessing.
Al Shukaili pointed out that the Authority, represented by the Center for Quality Assurance of School Education, has issued the National System for Evaluating School Performance after several stages of construction, experimentation and review, during which it relied on analysing relevant documents and studies, and in-depth review of a number of regional and international experiences and practices.
Al Shukaili indicated that the system went through stages of local and international consultations, in addition to the experiences of a number of schools with different contexts to ensure its suitability and effectiveness for the reality of schools in the Sultanate of Oman.
Dr. Thuraya bint Saif Al Hosni, Director General of the Center for Quality Assurance of School Education, explained that the new system will contribute to bringing about a qualitative shift in the performance of schools in the Sultanate of Oman, and enable them to continuously improve their performance.
Al Hosni added that the evaluation mechanism will include field visits by specialised auditors, accompanied by the preparation of accurate reports that reflect strengths and improvement opportunities supported by detailed evidence of the school's performance to ensure that schools and supervisory bodies develop effective strategic plans to improve the performance of each school.
Al Hosni stated that the school performance evaluation framework aims to build sustainable partnerships with the Ministry of Education and relevant authorities, which achieves integration and enhances the quality of education in the Sultanate of Oman.
She stressed that the Authority is keen to cooperate with specialised international and regional institutions to enhance the exchange of expertise and experiences that contribute to improving educational performance and achieving sustainable excellence.
It is worth noting that the National System for Evaluation of School Performance in the Sultanate of Oman is a step towards achieving Oman Vision 2040 in the priority of education, learning, scientific research and building national capacities, and keeps pace with global developments in the quality of school education. It also consolidates the position of the Sultanate of Oman as a distinguished educational center at the regional and international levels. The system also contributes to creating a stimulating and innovative educational environment that drives the comprehensive growth of students and meets the aspirations of parents and society to improve the quality of education.
