WUNRN
OMAN - "Sharifa said girls now accounted for 49
per cent of students in state-run schools, while the corresponding figure in
private schools was 44.7 per cent. At the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU),
regarded as Oman’s highest seat of learning, the percentage of female students
in the 2008-09 academic year stood at 48 per cent in bachelor degree
programmes.In private universities and colleges in the country, their ratio was
57 per cent."
OMAN
- WOMEN'S ROLE IN DEVELOPMENT HIGHLIGHTED
Ravindra
Nath
19 October 2009
OMAN, MUSCAT — A national seminar opened in the Batinah
region district of Sohar on Saturday with high-ranking speakers underscoring
the part played by women in the Sultanate’s social, economic and political
development. They also noted that the Omani woman had proved herself within and
outside the country.
The ‘Symposium on Omani Women’, organised on instructions from His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, was inaugurated by Dr Rawiyah bint Saud Al Busaidiyah, the Higher Education Minister, with several VVIPs including chairmen of the State Council and Majlis Ash’shura, ministers, state advisors and under-secretaries in attendance.
The venue of the three-day event is Seih Al Makarem, where Sultan Qaboos, currently on his annual ‘Meet the People’ tour of the country’s wilayats, is camping. Rawiyah set the tone for the day’s discussions when she pointed out that the important role played by women in Oman had been fully acknowledged by the nation. She noted that Sultan Qaboos and his administration had lent wholehearted support to women in order to “push the development march and as a confirmation of the real partnership in nation-building.”
The symposium, Rawiyah said, was meant to further encourage women to shoulder even bigger responsibilities in their country’s growth process. “The seminar assumes significance because it discusses different aspects of issues of interest to the Omani woman,” she added.
Social Development Minister Dr Sharifa bint Khalfan Al Yahya’eeiyah, stressed the government had always, right from the beginning, taken note of the need to empower and educate women, adding: “His Majesty the Sultan’s constant encouragement for the Omani woman to take an active part in the progress and prosperity of Oman has been one of the main features of the Omani renaissance movement.”
Oman’s women, she said, had “kept pace with the development process and managed to prove herself well inside and outside the country.”
She added that national efforts to empower women focused on two main themes — the first dealing with revising laws and regulations to eliminate all legal barriers that hampered the effective participation of women in different sectors, and the second with raising public awareness and correcting wrong perceptions and traditions that violated the rights of woman and her role in life as man’s partner.
Sharifa said girls now accounted for 49 per cent of students in state-run schools, while the corresponding figure in private schools was 44.7 per cent. At the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), regarded as Oman’s highest seat of learning, the percentage of female students in the 2008-09 academic year stood at 48 per cent in bachelor degree programmes.In private universities and colleges in the country, their ratio was 57 per cent.
At the post-graduate level at SQU, their percentage was 42. Also, women comprised 54.6 per cent of all Omani students studying in foreign universities at the degree level and 27.6 per cent at the post-graduate stage.
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