News & Event

The Ministry of Education, represented by the Directorate-General of Curriculum Development, launched the Educational Tools Caravan initiative under the slogan “Innovation and Communication,” with its first stop starting , in Muscat Governorate, with the participation of schools of Muscat and South Al Batinah Governorates. The caravan then moves to Sohar, with the participation of schools of North Al Batinah and Al Buraimi Governorates. The caravan will conclude its work in Nizwa with the participation of schools of Al Dakhiliyah and Al Dhahirah Governorates. 

On the role of the Directorate-General of Curriculum Development in supporting the initiative and achieving its goals, Dr. Sultan Al Kindi, Assistant Director-General of Curriculum Development for Educational Resources, Vice Chairman of the main committee supervising the initiative, said: “Educational tools are considered one of the main enablers for teachers to develop the quality of education, enhance students’ skills and competencies, develop their abilities through self-learning and improve their analytical and critical skills. In order to achieve those goals; the Directorate-General of Curriculum Development, represented by the Educational Technologies Department, sought to implement the initiative with the aim of encouraging those working in the educational field to innovate educational methods that are compatible with the scientific content of the school curricula and characterized by low cost and ease of use. Thus, an integrated vision for the initiative and the technical aspects that it will include was prepared, along with defining the standards of preparing the educational tools. Preparations have also been made for the implementation of exhibitions and accompanying events. The exhibition accompanying the caravan is divided into two parts: the Ministry’s Educational Tools Section, which includes a set of tools, materials, pictures, models, and educational bags that the Ministry provides to the educational field. The second part is the Field Innovations Tools Section, which includes tools produced by workers in the educational field that are low cost and for all subjects and semesters.” 

Dr. Khadija Al Balushi, Assistant Director-General for Education Affairs at the Directorate-General of Education in Muscat Governorate, spoke about the quality of the work submitted by teachers. She said: “The Educational Tools Caravan initiative comes to show schools’ innovations in educational methods, exchange experiences, review observations and suggestions, and find ways to develop and improve them through the mobile exhibition that includes the most important products of teachers, which highlights the innovation of the educational field in the various academic subjects. It can be said that to achieve the quality of educational methods, this requires that teachers follow a set of directives and guidelines, which can be summarized as follows: analyzing students’ needs, determining the most appropriate method to ensure their understanding and benefit, matching educational methods with the curricula to verify their connection with each other, and ensuring their clarity, comprehensiveness, diversity, ability to achieve interaction and participation, use of higher thinking skills, and its connection with innovative technology, so that it can be tried and tested for its effectiveness, and then periodically evaluate these means and make the necessary adjustments to improve them whenever necessary.” 

Dr. Khadija Al-Balushi also stressed on the importance of highlighting the media role in activating the initiative, as it is the spark that ignites the fuse that lights the various stages of the initiative, and through it we know the progress of the timeline of the plan drawn up by the committee. It also serves as an incentive for the members of the committee that illuminates the path for them, determining the end point of each mission and the beginning of the next one until reaching the desired goal. 

Saif Al-Ghafri, Assistant Director-General for Administrative and Financial Affairs of the Directorate-General of Education in North Al-Batinah Governorate and head of the technical team for the initiative in North Al-Batinah Governorate, indicated that the foundations and initial evaluation criteria followed focused on several topics that are consistent with the objectives of the initiative, including the technical and scientific specifications of the participating tool. He added: “The initial evaluation committee verified the technical standards of the educational tool, including the ease of use in the educational situation, the availability of suspense and arousing learners’ motivation elements, the clarity of the content in terms of font, graphics, colors, artistic direction, and the appropriateness of the proposed time in using it for the learning time. Among the criteria as well are the easiness of design and production, easiness of perseverance and storage, and also provision of security and safety elements, an element of modernity, and the possibility of multiple uses.” 

Al-Ghafri also touched on the scientific elements and specifications in the innovative educational tool that is evaluated, including its connection to the methodological objectives of the academic subjects, and the validity and accuracy of the targeted scientific content while providing an element of innovation in implementation and its suitability for the target age group, as well as the extent to which it develops the mental and skill abilities of the learners and takes into account individual differences and its consistency with modern teaching approaches. 

Al-Ghafri also pointed out that the initial evaluation process in the governorate took place according to a timetable prepared for that, preceded by an awareness-raising process that targeted all schools in the governorate, so that all target groups of the evaluation process would be aware of the evaluation mechanism followed by the technical committee in the governorate. 

Ali Al-Shukaili, Assistant Director-General for Administrative and Financial Affairs at the Directorate-General of Education at Al Dakhiliyah Governorate, said: “The Educational Tools Caravan initiative seeks to highlight the pioneering role played by both the teacher and the school in inventing and producing educational tools that enhance the educational process, and aim to raise the achievement levels of our students by stimulating their interest and motivation to learn and consolidating methodological ideas. Accordingly, the Directorate-General of Education of Al Dakhiliyah Governorate sought to translate the Educational Tools Caravan initiative in coordination and cooperation with the Directorate-General of Curriculum Development, through implementing a number of events and activities accompanying the Educational Tools Caravan, which are summarized in the implementation of a workshop on the production of educational tools with 3D printers, as well as a workshop on the production of educational tools in Braille for the blind. The second day also includes a workshop on robots in mathematics, a workshop on activating the interactive whiteboard, as well as a workshop on producing educational tools from local environmental materials, as well as other educational tools on active learning strategies. All of these workshops serve a large segment of beneficiary teachers in various disciplines and academic subjects, in order to enrich their knowledge and experience and develop their skills and abilities in the field of producing educational tools and effective methods for use in various educational situations.” 

Dr. Hakam Al Farsi, Assistant Director-General for Education at the Directorate-General of Education in Al Dhahirah Governorate, confirmed the interaction of school administrations and teachers with the initiative, saying: “After the announcement of the educational tools caravan (Innovation and Communication), the positive interaction of school administrations was noted through their participation, which in turn urged and encouraged the teaching bodies to produce educational tools with artistic direction that are interesting to the student, and inexpensive and adhere to the specifications mentioned in the guide. Accordingly, a spirit of fair competition was created among teachers to produce developed educational tools that serve the educational-learning situations and play their role in conveying information in an easy and simple manner to the student.” 

Dr. Hakam Al-Farsi added: “Communication was also observed between the teacher and the competent educational supervisor with the aim of providing support and assistance in the suitability of the educational tools produced with the subject, through which the teacher can present it and benefit from other technical consultations with the aim of development and improvement. The contributions from teachers in schools in Al Dhahirah Governorate in this initiative, before the initial evaluation, reached more than (90) productive works that are evaluated according to the specified criteria and thus approved as distinguished works from the educational field’s productions in the Educational Tools Caravan Exhibition (Innovation and Communication). Later on, these models will be available to the teacher to employ in educational and learning situations in the optimal manner.” 

Regarding the role of the initiative in developing education and promoting innovation in the educational field, Dr. Sultan Al Yahyai, Assistant Director-General for Administrative and Financial Affairs at the Directorate-General of Education in Al Buraimi Governorate, said: “The initiative is based on encouraging workers in the educational field to innovate and be creative in producing low-cost educational tools, highlighting the most important innovations in the educational field, and highlighting the possibility of the Ministry adopting a number of distinctive initiatives and innovations, redesigning and developing them, and subsequently producing and distributing them to the Sultanate’s schools, and helping teachers with innovations to develop their methods, and identify ways to improve their technical specifications and raise the efficiency of their performance, to achieve learning in its cognitive, skill and emotional aspects.” 

Khalifa Al Kalbani, Acting Assistant Director-General for Educational Affairs at the Directorate-General of Education in South Al Batinah Governorate, head of the technical team at the Governorate, affirmed the efforts of the technical team in implementing the phases of the Educational Tools Caravan initiative (Innovation and Communication), and said: “The issuance of the administrative decision for the initiative team at the Governorate level came in accordance with the description and directives received from the ministry as an initial start for forming the technical team, after which a meeting was held for the administrative team in the Governorate to introduce the initiative and discuss work mechanisms to activate the contents of the initiative in schools in an effort to encourage schools to participate in the caravan. The roles are then divided among the team members, and a timetable is drawn up for the mechanisms for implementing the initiative, starting from announcing the initiative and circulating it to schools, all the way to implementing the final exhibition in Muscat Governorate.” 

Khalifa Al-Kalbani added: “The technical team has intensified media awareness of the initiative in schools and relevant authorities, and the media momentum for the initiative has taken more than one aspect, including: announcing the initiative and circulating it to schools, circulating the initiative to supervisory cadres to be a support for the team in raising awareness, and publicizing it on social media sites to be available to all schools and professionals. In addition to carrying out a number of introductory workshops for schools, members of the initiative team also made a number of field visits to the governorate’s schools to follow up on their efforts to participate in the caravan, and to provide appropriate support and encouragement.” 

Al-Kalbani also said: “We began the initial evaluation of the contributions submitted by the governorate’s schools by following the evaluation form approved by the main committee of the initiative, which includes the standards, both technical and scientific, and then we carried out the process of sorting and final evaluation of the tools submitted by the participating schools in preparation for participation in the final stop of the caravan in the exhibition scheduled to be held in Muscat Governorate. We have also developed a vision of the accompanying activities that the governorate intends to participate with in the exhibition, and the participation of members of the governorate team in organizing the caravan exhibition and its accompanying events in cooperation with specialists in the Ministry and the Directorate-General of Education in Muscat Governorate, which is hosting the caravan exhibition, and organizing a schedule for the Governorate’s school to visit the Caravan Exhibition.” 

Badr Al Ameri, a senior e-learning specialist at the Directorate-General of Education in Muscat Governorate, said: “Out of our belief in the importance of educational tools, this initiative seeks to select every educational tool that carries a new and innovative idea, no matter how simple it is, and for this reason the most prominent tasks carried out by the committees formed in the governorates is selecting educational tools, searching for added values in them and the existence of new, more creative or innovative ways to present educational content and the extent of learners’ interaction with them, and that the goal of innovation is to improve the quality of education and increase the engagement, motivation and creativity of students.”