MUSCAT: The Ministry of Higher Education and Oman Society for Petroleum Services (OPAL) have signed a cooperation programme to conduct a tracer study of graduates joining the oil and gas sector. Dr Abdullah Al Sarmi, Under-Secretary, Ministry of Education, signed the agreement on behalf of the ministry, while Musallam Al Mandhari, CEO of OPAL signed the agreement for OPAL. The programme aims to facilitating the collection, analysis, and sharing of data to support the assessment of graduates versus market skill needs, and identify the shortage in skills that may improve human capital development standards in oil and gas sector.
The programme which will last for 10 months will include 3 types of studies. The first study looks into the mismatch between the students’ academic performance and set of knowledge and skills or abilities the sector requires of applicants through analysing their scores in a set of pre-service and post service assessments. This study will link graduates data to their academic history in the ministry database to understand the progress in building up set of knowledge, skills or qualifications in a five years career.
Second study will scrutinise the status of the female workforce in the sector and the challenges they face. It will conduct a survey that targets females for those who are currently working in the sector, those who have resigned from the sector and those who had applied to the sector but rejected job offers. It focuses on the distribution of females on the jobs at this sector. It attempts to identify the positives and negatives of working in oil and gas companies from the females’ point of views.
The third study (intervention programmes) identifies national intervention programmes that might boost employing qualified Omani graduates in the sector. The study will be conducted by Graduate Survey Department at the Ministry of Higher Education and will be stewarded by Oman Society for Petroleum Services (OPAL), and sponsored by HR In Country added Value committee at the Ministry of Oil and Gas, ORPIC, Oman Oil Company and Oman LNG Development Foundation.
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