хз я певно збоченець) але працює)

$mas = $this->mysql->fetch_array($res);
$xml = new DOMDocument();

$xml->encoding = "utf-8";
$xml->loadXML(utf8_encode($mas['fskills']));
$headlines = $xml->getElementsByTagName("s");
$rows = "";
foreach($headlines as $headline){
$rows = utf8_decode($headline->getAttribute("name"));
}