الملخص الإنجليزي
The purpose of this study is to identify the reality of Community participation in educational decision making in the Educational system in the Sultanate of Oman; and that is in order to get a deeper understanding of this reality and work to improve it to achieve the level of participation that aspires all.
In order to achieve the above mentioned objective, the researcher has started conducting semi-structured interviews with the help of an interview directory which has been designed through the study and analysis of the educational literatures. Furthermore, to conduct the interviews, a deliberate sample with an experience in the educational committees and councils has been selected which consisted of 18 individuals from parents councils from the 3 levels (the school, the state, and the educational location). In addition, the sample also consisted of members from the educational and culture committee in the Shura Council as well as private schools' principals.
The data have been then analyzed by using a special data analysis program called NVivo and the results have revealed the following findings:
The participants who have participated in this study have confirmed that there are efforts being taken by the community members towards participating in the Educational decision making. This is achieved by passing their views and recommendations to the official parties. The decision making process goes through many stages starting from identifying the problem. The participants verified that there is no update provided by the educational committees or the parents' councils once an issue is discovered in the educational system. The second stage is known as the research and investigation stage where the participants stressed the lack of information request initiation by the official parties from the community despite of having official channels that they depend on to get the necessary information and views. The community feels that some of these official channels do not get enough attention and what confirms this is the lack of feedback from the official parties on what the community individuals provide in terms of information, views and recommendations.
After this, comes the solution and alternatives research stage in which the participants have clarified that this stage lacks the educational seminars and conferences. Furthermore, the participants have acknowledged that there are limited opportunities given to them to select between the different alternatives. Nevertheless, the participants have verified that in the solution selection and decision making stage, the official parties are the ones who select the solutions through initially experimenting them and then starting to communicate them to the educational institutes. On the other hand, the participants value the efforts put by the official parties which is reflected in the ministry's electronic portal, however they feel that there is a weakness in establishing the right environment for the decision before it's announced.
Then there is the decision making following up stage where the participants have clarified that there is no modifications/ amendments done based on the feedback that the official parties receive on the decisions implemented. This means that there is a weakness in the mechanisms used in receiving and recording the community's feedback on decision making process. In the final stages of the educational decision making comes the stage of scheduling the decision which the participants believe there is also a lack in scheduling the decision.
Furthermore, there is a lack in the rules that guarantee the community's rights to participate in the educational decision making. In addition, there is a weakness in the bi-directional communication internally within the ministry and externally with the community. Nevertheless, the participants confirmed that there is also no morale motivation offered to the members of the councils.
In the light of the above results that have been reached through the field study, the researcher has presented a number of recommendations to improve the current reality in order to achieve partnership between the community and the official party. The most important recommendation is working on building positive trends towards community participation in the educational decision making. Nevertheless, putting a legal frame which guarantees community participation and award them the official character as well as taking care of the bi-directional communication and adopting qualitative analysis mechanisms to benefit from all the reports that are being produced from the field. Last but not least, modifying the parents' councils' regulatory manual and preparing / creating the Internal and the external environments to receive decisions as well as taking interest in announcing the decisions.
