New scholarships for manufacturing and craft courses

MUSCAT: High school students applying for scholarships can expect to receive never-seen-before grants, according to the HEAC.

“Hull-engineering and arts grants for sewing, woodwork, tanning, subjects related to jewellery, and pottery are some of the newest programmes in higher education institutions for the year 2017-2018,” Dr. Hamad Khalfan Al Numani said in a statement.

These have been added to the usual mix of scientific and literary scholarships offered every year, which range from medicine to law and linguistics.

Jassim Al Balushi, deputy head of Education and Professional Development at Caledonian College, said, “Caledonian is all engineering, plus a Bachelors degree in Science.”

“Of course they’re important,” he added when asked about the new craft and manufacturing scholarships.

“The Sultanate would benefit greatly from these manufacturing and craft specialties. They’re actually one of the supporting pillars that an economy can fall back on. No, I expect that these majors are incredibly important.”

“As an engineering college, if they could find a way to tie in these things to the technical work of engineers, it would be excellent. The market needs this sort of thing. Some of the greatest countries were built on metal work and other crafts. Think of ancient Majan, it was based on metal work. I’m for it, to be honest.”

Plenty for students

Even without the new scholarships, there are plenty for students to look forward to. In a graphic within the same statement, HEAC said, “There are a grand total of 29,647 higher education seats this year, including around 1,600 full scholarships to study outside of Oman and 1,500 scholarships reserved for those students who qualify for social security.”

According to Al Numani, “The percentage of available seats compared with graduating high school students in the age group of 16-25 is 92 per cent.”