In Her Own Hands: How Women’s Classrooms in North Al Batinah Are Turning Smartphone Anxiety Into Everyday Independence
Inside public school computer labs in Sohar and Al Suwaiq, mothers and grandmothers who recently learned to read are mastering digital appointments, utility bills, and fraud safety on their own terms.
For years, the smartphone in Safiya bint Abdullah Al Nuaimani’s hand worked in only one direction. When it rang at her home in Al Suwaiq, she could press the green icon to answer. When a family message arrived on WhatsApp, she could tap play on a voice note. Everything else—reading a verification code, booking a clinic visit, or paying an electricity bill—had to wait until one of her grown children was free to do it for her.
Today, as a third-year adult learner at Juwairiyah bint Al Harith Basic Education School in Al Suwaiq, Safiya reads street signs and medicine labels for herself. Now, stepping from her reading classroom into the school’s computer laboratory, she is learning to navigate the screen she once hesitated to touch.
“Reading prepared me for this step, and I aspire to complete my transactions myself,” Safiya says. With a son working away in Muscat, her goals are practical and deeply personal: placing video calls to see him on her own, reserving appointments at the local health center, paying water and power bills from home, checking prayer times, and keeping her banking PIN codes strictly to herself.
From Alphabet Notebooks to School Computer Labs
Across North Al Batinah Governorate, the Directorate of Education has introduced an adult digital literacy pilot across two continuing-education sections—at Juwairiyah bint Al Harith Basic Education School in Al Suwaiq and the Al Ahd Al Zahir literacy section in Sohar. Rather than building separate facilities from scratch, the program opens existing public school computer labs to adult women and pairs them with specialist IT teachers from the Ministry’s teaching staff.
Juwairiyah bint Al Harith has become the first adult literacy center in Oman to pilot the Grade 3 Digital Literacy textbook alongside its companion activity booklet, using classroom feedback from adult mothers to refine how practical technology skills are taught nationwide. Structured into 24 lessons across six core pillars, the coursework covers computer fundamentals, typing, digital communication, online safety, electronic government portals, and distance learning.
At the Al Ahd Al Zahir section in Sohar, learner Badriya bint Rashid Al Maqbali describes the shift in household confidence that comes with understanding unfamiliar icons and menus. Having enrolled initially to master reading and writing, she saw digital coursework as the natural next threshold. Simple tasks—confirming a hospital slot or filling in an online form without handing her phone across the living room—carry real weight in daily family life.
Teaching Three Skill Levels in One Room
Inside the lab, progress rarely moves in a single straight line. Amira bint Salim Al Shibli, an information technology teacher at Al Ahd Al Zahir, notes that a single bench can hold three distinct starting points at once: one learner already comfortable making calls and sending messages, a second still sounding out written words syllable by syllable, and a third holding a smartphone with deliberate caution for the first time.
“Sometimes I find myself teaching three lessons inside one lesson,” Al Shibli says, pointing as well to differences in phone brands, screen layouts, and eyesight among older students.
At Juwairiyah bint Al Harith in Al Suwaiq, IT teacher Salima bint Muhanna Al Qanoubi sees another quiet hurdle during the opening weeks: the fear that a single mistaken tap might break a computer or wipe out family memories. Teachers counter that hesitation with visual step-by-step cards, magnified projection screens, patient repetition, and a strict privacy rule. Because women’s personal phones contain private family photographs and accounts, instructors never inspect personal galleries—using simulated digital forms in the lab before asking learners to apply each skill at home.
Closing a Skill Gap, Protecting Household Privacy
Every lesson ties technical steps directly to digital self-defense. Learners practice spotting suspicious links, verifying official websites, creating strong passwords, and recognizing phone or message scams before sharing verification numbers.
For Dr. Sultan bin Salim Al Issaei, Head of Continuing Learning Supervision in North Al Batinah, and Lifelong Learning Supervisor Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Jahwari, the pilot reflects a broader truth about modern literacy. Owning the latest handset means little if a citizen still has to hand that device—and her personal data—to someone else whenever an OTP message arrives.
“The digital divide is no longer a device gap; it has become a skill and benefit gap,” Al Jahwari notes. To make sure classroom exercises translate into lasting habits, supervisors track practical milestones before and after the course—and check back months after completion to see whether graduates are still booking appointments, paying bills, and spotting fraudulent messages on their own.
In Sohar and Al Suwaiq, that independence shows up in quiet moments: a mother reading a screen without squinting for help, dialing her son in Muscat by video, and setting her phone down knowing every tap was hers.
