679 ©Authors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research Vol. 22, No. 6, pp. 679-693, June 2023 https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.22.6.34 Received Apr 13, 2023; Revised Jun 18, 2023; Accepted Jun 22, 2023 Teacher Recruitment and the Right Career Choice: Parents’ Perceptions of the Teaching Profession in Oman Khalaf M. Al’Abri Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman Omer H. Ismail * Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman Aieman A. Al-Omari Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan Abstract. This study aimed to identify why students are reluctant to choose teaching as a career in the Sultanate of Oman from parents’ perceptions. It also aimed to verify whether there were statistically significant gender differences in parents’ perceptions of the teaching profession. Using a quantitative research design, the study applied a questionnaire to a sample of 2,519 parents, of whom 66.7% were males and 33.3% were females. The questionnaire results indicated that the reasons for reluctance in choosing to teach from parents’ perceptions centred on the difficulty of the career, the lack of financial incentives compared to the workload, and teachers’ low social status compared to other professions. The results also revealed gender differences in choosing teaching as a career in favour of females from the perspective of students’ parents. It is recommended that parents should respect their children’s choice of future professions and their desire to be teachers. In addition, the Ministry of Education in Oman must make significant efforts to make teaching an attractive career again. Keywords: career choice; teaching profession; parents’ perceptions; Oman; quantitative research 1. Introduction The education sector plays a significant role in all developed and developing societies across various social, educational, cultural, political, and economic fields. Education is one of the most important sources of national income for many countries in the world. In Muslim countries, the Islamic religion values * Corresponding author: Ismail, omerhi@squ.edu.om