Incorporating Citizenship Education Framework in Social Studies Teachers’ Education Programme in Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

Educational system in Oman is attempting to educate Omani students to be "good" citizens in an increasingly globalized society. However, a few studies that have been conducted until now in Oman revealed a gap between the intentions of the educational policy of teaching citizenship education in the schools and the actual practices of teacher education preparation programs. Therefore, any endeavor to develop citizenship in Oman schools will not achieve its goals without taking teacher education into account both pre-service and in-service. Accordingly, the present study aims to propose a framework for developing citizenship education in the initial teacher education in Oman. This descriptive study highlighted the gap between the policy and practice in social studies teacher education. The international literature reveals that student teachers feel insufficiently prepared to develop citizenship and Omani student teachers are not exceptional. Thus, the present study proposed a framework to incorporate citizenship education in the current teachers' preparation programs. Furthermore, the study reveals the inadequate presence of the topic of citizenship in teacher education. Therefore, teachers' understanding of citizenship becomes shallow, which undoubtedly leads to superficial learning on the part of the students. Therefore, a framework was proposed to develop citizenship in teacher education. This framework consists of the rationale behind the change, the Layout of the ground for change in teacher education, the mechanisms of the change, and the areas of the change.

Promoting Global Citizenship Education (GCED) in the Sultanate of Oman: An Analysis of National Policies

“…Several previous studies have explored the fulfillment of GCED requirements in the Oman context based on policy and literature analysis. A study conducted by Al-Maamari [27] on GCED in a social studies primary teacher preparation program showed that both teachers and students have suffered from limited and traditional applications of GCED in the social studies preparation program. This finding was linked to the dissatisfaction of policymakers, especially the MOE, with the insufficient preparation of teachers for the development of citizenship.…”

“…Similarly, some studies conducted in Oman have shown that GCED is still associated with the field of social studies [9,25,27]. Therefore, the role of other subjects such as English, geography, science, and Islamic culture must be strengthened in order increase the effectiveness of GCED.…”

“…Furthermore, the lack of adequate levels of GCED in both initial teacher preparation and in-service teacher education impedes the promotion of global citizenship among school students, and so it must become an essential component of teacher education and training. Teachers may not be able to communicate the principles of global citizenship as they are outlined in educational policy documents [27]. Besides, Al-Maamari [31] found that educating global citizens is a necessary task for the Omani geography curriculum.…”