News & Event

HE Prof. Dr. Abdullah bin Khamis Ambosaidi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education for Education, patronized yesterday, Monday, the launch of the “Educational Research Forum”, which is organized by the Ministry of Education, represented by the Specialized Institute for Professional Training of Teachers, with the participation of international speakers ISESCO, ALSCO, the Arab Education Bureau for the Gulf States, and Sultan Qaboos University. The forum is taking place at the Oman Convention and Exhibition Center and continues for three consecutive days, with the participation of more than 300 participants from specialists, decision-makers, academics, and the educational body, including teachers, school principals, administrative supervisors, and trainers, and the presentation of 72 papers.

The opening ceremony began with the Ministry of Education’s speech delivered by Dr. Intisar Ambosaidi, Director-General of the Specialized Institute for Professional Training of Teachers, Head of the main committee of the Educational Research Forum, in which she said: “Scientific research has become one of the most important goals and necessities in building and advancing the intellectual and cognitive civilization of developed nations, as it is witnessing rapid progress and steady growth. Moreover, it helps to qualify and train working educational energies for creativity and innovation.”

She added: “The Sultanate seeks to become a leading regional hub in research and innovation to form a research system that responds effectively to scientific and development needs in the fields of life, science and the knowledge economy, in an effort by the Sultanate to possess broad research capacity and achieve excellence in the field of scientific research and innovation, as it has drawn up an enlightened standards and foundations, based on practical and specialized professional plans in accordance with Oman Vision 2040. Highlighting the priority of education, learning, scientific research and national capabilities, the Specialized Institute for Professional Training of Teachers seeks to keep pace with the priority of Oman’s vision of being among the developed countries in research and innovation, as it plays an important role in effective contribution to spread the culture of scientific research and develop innovation, starting with its training programs, which focus on methods of scientific

thinking, problem solving, and the formation of lively, effective professional learning communities, and ending with procedural research and producing new knowledge approved by scientific, educational and community research partnerships in pursuit of quality, empowerment, and creating positive change and achieving progress and excellence in learning, teaching, scientific research and innovation.”

The opening ceremony also included a short film that showcased the efforts made by the Specialized Institute for Professional Training of Teachers in supporting educational research.

This was followed by Dr. Kamal bin Salem Al-Hajjam, an educational expert at the Arab League Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, presented the keynote speaker’s paper entitled “Improving Learning Outcomes,” in which he discussed the development of educational practice, the development of the adequacy of controlling digital technologies, the development of digital technologies usage in teaching and learning activities and evaluation, the use of digital technologies that help success, the development of twenty-first century competencies among learners that are integrated into the curriculum, and the possibilities for employing digital technologies explicitly integrated into the curriculum and the expected renewed pedagogical approaches.

Then, the first session of the forum was held that included the presentation of (3) papers. The first paper was entitled “Digitalized Technologies: Strategic Solution Establishing Excellence and Creativity” presented by Aziz Al-Hajir, Director of programs in the field of educational technology in the education sector at the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The paper included the challenges facing educational systems, the importance of information and communications technology in improving the quality of education, and concerns and challenges in the use of information and communications technology in education. It also addressed some of ISESCO’s educational initiatives and projects to raise the quality of educational systems by integrating ICT.

The second paper was entitled “Improving the quality of the school education system in light of the professional empowerment of teachers,” presented by Dr. Saud bin Musa Al-Salahi, advisor to HE the Director-General of the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States. The paper dealt with the professionalization of education, the definition of professional empowerment, the reality of empowerment, and professional supportive practices of empowerment, its challenges, and roles.

Professor Dr. Fathi Muhammad Abu Nasser from Sultan Qaboos University presented the third and last paper of the first day, titled: “Raising Learning

Competencies”, in which he shed light on the system of raising teachers’ competencies and its impact on the quality of education and achieving excellence in the educational context, and touched on the foundations of raising teacher competencies, and their implications.

It is worth noting that the forum focuses on four basic topics, namely: developing the school education system, improving learning outcomes, raising the quality of school education, and developing the professional competencies of teachers. The forum comes with the aim of presenting international educational visions in the field of research, exchanging research experiences between various educational groups, and developing educational research by reviewing the results of studies and procedural research supervised by the Specialized Institute, and aligning educational research with the development needs of the educational field.