Muscat: Oman’s ministry of education has decided to take legal action against government school teachers participating in a strike that entered its third week on Sunday.

The ministry has initiated the action under Article No 106 of the Civil Service Act, government-run Oman News Agency (ONA) reported quoting sources at the ministry.

The report adds that ministry officials were currently coordinating with the Public Prosecution to formulate a case against the teachers, who are said to have prevented students from entering schools, called on other educators not to perform their duties and asked drivers of school buses not to transport students.

The ministry has formed teams in various directorates of education in different governorates to visit a number of schools in the provinces, especially in those schools that experienced significant disruption due to the strike. The teams will meet members of the teaching and administrative staff.

The sources pointed out that Article 12 of the Basic Law (Royal Decree No 101/96) states that the public sector jobs are considered a national service. The article also says that the employees assigned public service tasks should work in the public interest and serve society.

The meetings at the education ministry, which began on Sunday, underlined the need to maintain the regularity of the educational process to avoid any adverse effects.

Omani teachers have been on strike since the beginning of this month, making various demands including fewer working hours, the right to form a union and a salary structure based on seniority.

There are over 1,000 government-run schools delivering basic education and it is believed that almost 70 per cent of the schools are affected by the strike. The teachers, who number over 50,000, have been going to schools but not teaching, meaning students have been sent home each day for two of the last three weeks, which included the week-long Eid Al Adha holiday.

The senior ministry officials have appealed, more than once, to teachers to resume work for the sake of the pupils’ futures. Ministry officials believe that there are proper channels to raise the teachers’ demands and that they were wrong to stop working.

The teachers are demanding less than 20 classes per week, but senior ministry officials claim that the internationally acceptable standard was 28 school periods per week. Each period lasts for 45 minutes and a teacher takes an average five classes a day.

The ministry has argued that the number of students has decreased from 568,000 to 518,000 between 2005 and 2012.

Dr Hamoud Bin Khalfan Bin Mohammad Al Harthy, Undersecretary for Education and Curricula at the Ministry of Education, told media recently that the ministry was also looking at the salary structure of the teachers, which is currently uniform irrespective of seniority.