MUSCAT: The Ministry of Education has issued a clarification regarding the application of the Cambridge curricula for science and mathematics.

The following clarifications were issued by the ministry:

1. The application of these curricula came in response to the pillars, goals and priorities of Oman’s Vision 2040, the requirements of the labor market, keeping pace with global developments, raising the level of students in science and mathematics in line with international and global standards, and raising the level of educational competencies for students of the Sultanate to enable them to compete with their peers globally in international competitions and studies.
2. These curricula are international curricula that have been selected based on a clear vision and precise criteria. Statistics in this aspect indicate that there are more than 160 countries around the world that apply these curricula, with a rate of 10,000 schools, and 93% of the graduates of these schools have been accepted into universities, of whom 70% have been accepted into the top 500 universities in the world, and Cambridge qualifications are recognised. International has more than 2000 educational institutions, including the best 20 universities in the world, and all student admission centres in different universities recognise that the Cambridge curricula prepare students for universities in an outstanding way; It relies on scientific investigation and problem solving to enable students to develop future skills and their scientific thinking skills, and thus, in terms of its scientific subject, it is able to enable students to pass the foundation year in universities.
3. These curricula follow the spiral principle in presenting topics, which makes the student gradually reach the depth of scientific information and concepts in proportion to the age stage.
4. The implementation of this experiment has gone through a number of steps:
   Studying the experiences of bilingual private schools in applying global chains, in which the high level of achievement of their students and their excellence in these two subjects (science and mathematics) in particular was evident.

Forming a main committee to determine the international publishing houses and technical standards to choose the appropriate series, as the committee included educational curricula specialists, educational supervisors and experts. Preparing the educational field and the local community by launching awareness campaigns in 2017-2019.

Forming technical teams of Omani competencies specialised in this field to carry out the work of adapting and harmonising these curricula in line with the Omani identity, national and societal culture, customs, traditions and principles of the Islamic religion; It has been subjected to extensive stages of harmonisation, revision and scrutiny. In order to ensure its complete artistic output.

Training supervisors and teachers on the philosophy of the Cambridge curricula, appropriate teaching methods, and lesson planning. Evaluation of the project through field visits conducted by educational curricula specialists and first supervisors in the General Directorate of Educational Supervision during 2018-2020, in addition to benefiting from observations during the development process. The international study TIMSS 2019 showed a significant improvement in results for the fourth grade compared to the previous session TIMSS 2015.

5. As for the subdivision of science subjects in the ninth and tenth grades, this was done after a study of the reality of the application of this integrated subject, and based on the observations and opinions of the educational field, which confirm the need for the scientific subject of this subject for a specialised teacher in each branch, as well as in response to the demands of specialists from the members of the community. Those who believed that providing the student with depth in understanding the scientific dimensions of the content can only be achieved by subdividing this subject into its basic disciplines (physics, chemistry, and biology) in order to enable him in the future to determine his scientific inclinations and professional orientation at an early age.