Students, job seekers explore options at Ghedex in Oman

Muscat: A number of students and job seekers visited the Global Higher Education Exhibition and Omanisation Career Fair (Ghedex) taking place at Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre.
About 350 students from the Indian School Muscat visited the exhibition and interacted with university representatives from different countries. They were accompanied by their teachers.
Satpal Mamotra, one of the teachers said, “It’s good to bring the students here, we had about 350 of them from the Science and Commerce streams and they were enlightened by some of the university representatives.
“Sometimes when students are not very clear about what they want as a career, they can get great ideas from such exhibitions. Maybe there is a field which they have not researched about and they happen to speak to a university representative about it and find it interesting. So such events are always important, which is why we have brought our students.”
Participation
More than 200 universities from 20 countries are taking part in the 18th Ghedex, which started on Tuesday. Countries participating in the event include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, Qatar, India and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
The 16th Omanisation Career Fair (OCF), also being held, along with Ghedex is featuring 50 companies in Oman, including the Public Authority for Manpower Register (PAMR), Al Raffd Fund, Oman Shipping Company, Ministry of Manpower and others.
Haitham Al Ghafri, a student from one of the government schools said, “It’s interesting to come here and talk to potential employers, but I think there are fewer recruiters here, a lot of the companies are public-owned, we need more private recruiters here, that will be helpful, because the government is cutting budgets and so it’s likely that they will not hire more people.”
Commitment to education
According to an Oxford Business Group (OBG) 2016 report, “Despite a drop in oil and gas revenues, the Sultanate maintained its commitment to education spending in its 2015 budget, with the sector retaining a major share of state expenditure.”
This level of funding is likely to be sustained, even if the price of oil continues to drop, as there is a clear recognition in Muscat that education and training are fundamental to the success of the Sultanate’s wider economic, political and social aspirations.