News & Event

The Sultanate of Oman participates with the countries of the world and UNESCO in celebrating the International Literacy Day, which falls on the eighth of September every year. On this day, the Sultanate, represented by the Ministry of Education, seeks to highlight the most important efforts made, and highlight the supporting projects and programs that are implemented to help eradicate illiteracy. This year, the celebration comes under the slogan “Promoting Literacy in Light of Global Transformation: Building the Foundation for Achieving a Sustainable and Safe Life for Communities.” It also seeks to clarify the rates of illiteracy and literacy that have been reached in the Sultanate of Oman during previous periods.

The Sultanate of Oman has worked hard since the academic year 1973/1974 to combat and eliminate illiteracy in all its forms - reading, writing, cultural and civil - and has committed itself to the principle of “the right to education for all” without distinction between genders or different age groups as education is a guaranteed right for all. With increasing ambition for development and modernization and keeping pace with developments in the field of eradicating illiteracy, and with the acceleration of global changes and their impact on various aspects of life, it was necessary for education in this aspect to keep pace with these changes and developments, moving from its simple concept concerned with eradicating alphabetic illiteracy only and proceeding to a more comprehensive concept that keeps pace with sustainable development, which is “continuous education and lifelong learning.” Undoubtedly, this concept is compatible with the stages of development witnessed by the Sultanate of Oman in its drive to achieve Oman Vision (2040).

Based on this vision, the Ministry of Education developed strategic plans, which included in their objectives special activities to achieve and develop illiteracy eradication programs and projects to accelerate the eradication of illiteracy in the Sultanate of Oman. As a result of those efforts, the illiteracy rate in the Sultanate of

Oman decreased to (2.60) in the category age (15 years and over) according to data received from the National Center for Statistics for the year 2022.

The Sultanate of Oman also seeks regionally, represented by the Ministry of Education, to commit to implementing the provisions and recommendations of the Arab Decade for the Eradication of Illiteracy (2015/2024), which was approved by the Secretariat General of the League of Arab States so that the member states in this decade will become free of illiteracy by the year 2024. The Sultanate of Oman seeks to implement its contents and provide the necessary funding to achieve the stipulated items and has developed appropriate plans and strategies for that. In order to achieve the desired goal of the Arab Decade, which is for the Sultanate of Oman to be free of illiteracy by the end of 2024, the Ministry of Education focused on eradicating the illiteracy of the productive age group (15-44) during this decade period. The statistics received from the competent authorities showed the percentage of illiteracy in the aforementioned age group reached (0.44%) by the end of 2023 and compared to the percentage for the same category in the year 2015, the beginning of the Arab Decade period, this percentage was (2.2%). This is considered a qualitative achievement in eliminating illiteracy in the aforementioned category, and the Sultanate seeks to achieve its commitment by the year 2024.

In order to achieve these desired percentages in eradicating and eliminating illiteracy, a number of supportive projects were implemented that would strengthen partnerships between official institutions, private sector institutions, and civil society, considering illiteracy as a national issue, with the aim of accelerating the pace of its elimination. Among these ongoing and newly developed projects, for example: the training bag project, which contains the basic scientific material that is used to train those teaching in literacy classes to raise their professional level and develop their educational skills so that they can raise the academic level of students, and the annual training program for teachers of new literacy classes, which aims to provide teachers of new literacy classes with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that qualify them to work in the field of literacy, the Educated Village Project, which had and continues to be opened and spread throughout the various governorates of the Sultanate of Oman, has had a great impact in accelerating the pace of eliminating illiteracy, as the project targets all illiterate villagers at the same time, and the number of literate villages reached until the end of the academic year (2023/2024) (31) literate village across the Sultanate of Oman, and the cooperative school project, which received great support from government schools in spreading literacy throughout the Sultanate of Oman in terms of cooperation represented by opening literacy classes within them or providing external assistance to them and benefiting from the capabilities and services provided by these schools.

The project to eradicate the illiteracy of illiterate Omanis on the islands and marine villages is one of the new projects that had a role in eradicating the illiteracy of illiterate Omanis living in each of Al-Halaniyat Islands in the Dhofar Governorate, Masirah Island in the South Al Sharqiyah Governorate, the marine villages of Lima and Kamzar in Musandam Governorate, in which the duration of the study approved to be (3 years), and the project to eradicate the illiteracy of illiterate people working in the private sector is considered one of the projects that come in cooperation between the Ministry of Education and the private sector in the field of literacy, and the project to eradicate the illiteracy of illiterate people with disabilities, which is a project targeting illiterate Omanis with disabilities who are capable of learning in the Sultanate, in cooperation between the Ministry and the authorities supporting this group.

Out of concern for the Ministry of Education and its orientation towards digital government and the employment of various means of modern technology in various aspects of life, the Ministry has introduced modern technology in the field of lifelong learning through digital applications for literacy and adult education by registering students in the literacy and adult education systems in the educational portal of the Sultanate of Oman. Spreading media awareness of lifelong learning programs and registration in the literacy and adult education systems which is carried out through the educational portal, using some social networking sites, SMS messages, television, radio, and official newspapers in the Sultanate of Oman, and activating the WhatsApp service on communication sites between teaching and students in the literacy and adult education systems, and activating it in communicating between specialists in the Lifelong Learning Department in the Ministry and specialists in Lifelong Learning Departments in educational governorates, and activating the visual communication system (Video Conference) in implementing training seminars and forums for specialists in the field of lifelong learning that aim to raise their professional competence, identify all the difficulties and challenges facing those working in the field of literacy and adult education, discuss them, find appropriate solutions for them, and discuss all developments in lifelong learning.

It is worth noting that the total number of teachers in literacy centers and divisions in educational directorates in the governorates in the academic year 2022/2023 is (8631) teachers, while the total number of students in literacy eradication for the past academic year 2022/2023 reached (2623) students.