MUSCAT — Dr Rawya bint Saud al Busaidiya, Minister of Higher Education, yesterday met with a delegation from Petersburg comprising Simon Yazdgerd, Sultanate's Honorary Consul in Pennsylvania, Georges Montillet, Academician at the US Middle East Institute and Yale University, and Eric Shiner, Director of Andy Warhol Museum.
Dr Rawiyah welcomed the delegation, stressing the fruitful co-operation between the Sultanate and Petersburg. She highlighted the importance of benefiting from what universities, learning and research centres in Petersburg have, and finding out communicating channels to these institutions with their counterparts in the Sultanate.
On her part, Yazdgerd affirmed the co-operation between the two sides, reviewing the possibility of activating student exchange programme through hosting a number of American students in the Sultanate for three weeks during 2012 summer, which to be preceded by a visit of the delegation from host institutions to visit US to familiarise participating students with the Omani traditions, values and norms.
Dr Rawya said that basic goals of such programmes are to acquaint students with the Arab-Islamic culture, give them the opportunity to meet members of the society and deal with different social, economic and cultural categories of the society, thus providing more space for real communication between societies and debating over different issues and subjects. It is, therefore, more profitable to dispatch students with a good background in Arabic language to enable them to understand the Arab and Islamic cultures.
She also stressed the importance of preparing a proposed study for this student exchange programme, which includes the level of students, their majors, time period for their study and financial commitment.
She added that the coming period might see dispatching Omani students to US for the same goals.
An agreement was reached on continuing the communication between the two sides to explore different dimensions of the cultural and scientific co-operation to achieve complete translation of this partnership.
The meeting was attended by Dr Said al Rubai'ee and Dr Said al Adawi, advisers to the Higher Education Minister, and Dr Hamoud al Wardi, Dean of the Applied Sciences College at A'Rustaq. — ONA