Description
To judge the quality of education imparted at private academic institutions in the Sultanate, the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) will commence an opinion poll
on Tuesday.
The one-week survey will explore, among other things, the reasons as to why Omanis prefer private education, its availability and accessibility across the Sultanate and its academic standards.
The poll will also measure the public’s level of satisfaction with building quality and facilities provided to the students, apart from an assessment of the tuition fees charged. The extent and effectiveness of parent-teacher interactions will also be evaluated.
The survey will focus on two segments: schools and higher education institutions, including colleges and universities.
In the first category, as many as 1,200 parents of private school students will be surveyed, while an equal number of students aged 18 years and above pursuing higher education will be covered in the second segment.
The poll will also include all the private educational institutions functioning across the 11 governorates of the Sultanate, and have an error margin, not exceeding 3 per cent. The survey will use e-mails and telephones (both fixed-line and mobile phones) as tools to help collect data quickly.
The survey questionnaire has been framed to suit the communication style of e-mails and telephones, in terms of ease of response, as well as the number and sequence of questions.
Contact details for parents have been collected from the Ministry of Education, while those of college students have been sourced from the Ministry of Higher Education.
It is noteworthy that as per 2013 statistics, there were 1,042 government schools and 468 private schools in the Sultanate. As for higher education, the number of government colleges and universities was 26, while the private sector had 27 colleges and universities.
The education survey also reflects the NCSI’s commitment towards enhancing statistical information among community members, as the authorized centre mandated with the provision and dissemination of relevant data and as an agency tasked with developing a culture of information exchange among people.
This statistical data will remain confidential and will be used only for statistical purposes.