Activating Community Participation as an Entry Point for Developing Administrative Practices for Bilingual Private Schools in the Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

The current study aims at identifying the administrative practices associated with the community participation of bilingual private schools in the Sultanate of Oman. It also seeks to reveal the differences in the reality of administrative practices’ availability related to community participation in private schools from principals and teachers’ point of view according to the variables (gender, job title, experience, type of bilingual school and governorate), and to present the proposed vision for administrative practices’ development related to community participation in bilingual private schools in the Sultanate of Oman. The researcher used the descriptive analytical approach to achieve the objectives of the study, as the questionnaire was the tool. The study sample was represented by (159) private schools’ principals and teachers in the Sultanate of Oman. The sample consisted of (36) males and (123) females including (40) principals and (119) school teachers. As for the governorates, they included (113) from Muscat Governorate, (14) from Al Dakhiliyah, and (32) from North Al Batinah. The results of the study showed that the degree of administrative practices associated with the community participation ranged between medium and high, and the results of the study indicated that there was no estimation of the degree of administrative practices’ availability in private schools in the Sultanate due to the following variables (gender, job title, experience and type of bilingual school), While for the governorate variable, there were differences in the first axis which is administrative practices associated with community participation, and the differences came in favor of the study sample (Muscat). In order to activate the community partnership with the administration of private schools, the following measures were proposed according to the study’s results: promoting the teacher financially and morally so that he/she harnesses his full abilities and potentials in a high moral spirit, appreciating his/her role as a major partner in advancing the educational process, then setting foundations and criteria for measuring teachers' performance and avoiding bias in evaluation followed by administrative flexibility, sharing educational goals and achieving them with high quality, changing curricula and setting special plans and separate time slots for public schools.