Oman Minister of Education Visits Educational Centres in US and spends time with ATP Representatives

In March Dr. Madiha bint Ahmed al-Shaibanyah, Minister of Education in Oman and visited a number of educational centres in the United States; particularly those specialized in educational evaluation. The Minister's delegation included a number of specialists in the Office of the establishment of the National Centre for Educational Evaluation and Examinations and the National Centre for Vocational Guidance, as well as specialists from the Directorate General of Information Technology and the Directorate General of Educational Evaluation accompanied the Minister of Education.

The delegation met with ATP representatives including Dr. William G. Harris, CEO, Lauren Scheib, COO, Alan Thiemann, Esq., Legislative Counsel and Ashok Sarathy, Past-Chair of the ATP Security Committee.  

The visit programme also included a visit to The College Board, an ATP member  concerned with the development of student evaluation systems and criteria for measuring academic skills, capabilities and tools; as well as a meeting at Educational Test Services (ETS), an ATP member which is considered one of the oldest and largest institutions that prepare many types of tests worldwide such as the TOEFL tests in English skills.

The meeting reviewed the proposed cooperation between the Ministry and ETS  in the area of student learning assessment and the preparation and implementation of standardized tests, and marking methods used, in addition to benefit from the existing expertise in ETS to train Omani human resources in the areas of measurement and evaluation.