Sunday 19 / May / 2024
Muscat: The Ministry of Education, represented by the Directorate-General of Curriculum Development, and in cooperation with the Scientific College of Design, continues the implementation of the “Young Crafters” Programme.
The programme began last week and targets 30 students from Muscat Governorate, in order to maintain the continuity and permanence of Omani traditional crafts and employing modern technology to produce various designs related to traditional crafts.
The Young Crafters Programme is a vocational training project with the aim of providing students with craft, vocational, and technical skills that contribute to raising a generation proud of its cultural heritage and contributes to the local and global market.
The programme works to increase interest in crafts and traditional industries, in order to contribute to economic production, and to enable students to train their colleagues in the school on handicrafts.
The programme includes a number of skills needed for crafters, such as metal shaping, pottery, ceramics, artistic works, graphic design, and photography. The programme’s workshops are presented by professors specialized in the field of metals, pottery, artistic works, and graphic design from the Scientific College of Design.
Ahmed Al-Sabhani, a senior educational researcher at the Department of Citizenship, said: “The programme was organised in the form of interactive workshops, where students apply what they learn, under the supervision of academic trainers with experience in this field from the Scientific College of Design. On this basis, the programme was divided into two parts.”
“The first part focuses on training students in learning the skill of graphic design using well-known design programs, namely Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, in addition to learning the skill of advertising photography. In this part, the students were divided into two groups and alternated between the two workshops for two weeks.”
“The second part focuses on training each student in one of the following handicrafts: artistic works, metal shaping, ceramics making, and pottery. In light of this, the students were divided into three groups according to the student’s inclinations and choices, with a focus on the balance of the groups in number.”
The Young Crafters Programme aims to preserve and develop the cultural legacies of Omani crafts, enhance belonging and pride in national identity among school students, and keep pace with the directions of Oman Vision (2040), whose priorities include supporting citizenship, using technology in various industries, and developing students’ skills to employ modern technology in craft industries, opening students’ horizons and expanding their awareness of entrepreneurship, and training students on local and international marketing for local production.
