Training fund board meeting held to identify employment opportunities

Muscat: In an effort to identify employment opportunities the National Training Fund (NTF), held its first board meeting yesterday.
The meeting was held under the chair of Dr Mohamed bin Hamad Al Rumhy, Minster of Oil and Gas, Chairman of NTF Board. The National Training Fund was set up by the Royal Decree No. 48/2016. It aims to build the capabilities of the Omani workforce in order to bridge the gap between the market supply and demand.
NTF aims to foster collaboration amongst priority sectors to identify job opportunities and understand current requirements, as well as future needs.
To be achieve its goals, the fund has taken first steps towards evaluating the current state of training efforts, benchmarking with experienced nations, and developing a roadmap that will assist in implementation.
The meeting served the purpose of aligning the board members, as well as reviewing the strategic objectives and key milestones set for 2017.
Some of the focus areas discussed include mapping employment opportunities in strategic projects across the Sultanate. In addition, NTF plans on conducting numerous stakeholder engagement initiatives in order to align the private, public and employment market with the main purpose of developing a database that illustrates the Omani workforce supply against demand requirements. This will all be done in parallel while establishing the policies and procedures that govern NTF.
Dr. Al Rumhy, Chairman of the board placed emphasis on the fundamental need for the Fund to direct its resources efficiently towards strategic projects and national initiatives that will create jobs and reduce the number of jobseekers nationally. Public-Private-Partnership is crucial in allowing this to materialize. This can only be achieved through thorough research and studies, and collaborative partnerships. The fundamental priority for the fund is to facilitate in the creation of jobs and capability building of Omanis.