Gap grows between graduates’ skills and employers’ needs, conference told

DUBAI // Educational challenges across the Middle East vary from country to country, but one thing remains the same – the growing gap between education and market demand.

The urgent need for educators to produce graduates who possess skills sought after by employers took centre stage on Monday at a panel discussion during the second day of the Dubai Global Education and Skills Forum.

“Forty million young people [in the Middle East and North Africa] are going to enter the labour market in the coming 10 years, at the same time they are not qualified in terms of skills and knowledge to be productive, creating basically a huge problem for any economy,” said Dr Hamad Al Sheikh, vice minister of education for boys affairs in Saudi Arabia .

“There is a gap in terms of skills and knowledge between what the institution is producing and between what the demand factories and companies are asking for.”

To address the problem, Mr Al Sheikh said the Saudi Arabia government began to transform its education system by investing in teaching students what he called the 21st-century skills that are needed in the job market. The country also launched a national strategy to revamp the maths and science curricula and placed more stock in internationally standardised tests.

“We have also implemented achievement tests, national tests, in order to really make a clear assessment of our achievements within the educational system and hold the educational system accountable to the public in order to judge the system not by what we are saying but rather what the student is acquiring in terms of achievement, knowledge and skills,” said Dr Al Sheikh.

Dr Arif Al Hammadi, Abu Dhabi Education Council’s executive director for higher education, emphasised career and academic counselling as critical to helping students graduate ready to enter the workforce.

“We take that very seriously, the students, when they go from school, they need to know what are the jobs waiting for them,” Dr Al Hammadi said. “In the Abu Dhabi Education Council, we have guidance even at the kindergarten level to tell the students what are their future jobs going to be, just to make them passionate about the jobs they are going to do. If you want to be a doctor, you have to be passionate as a kid to become a doctor.

“And you don’t have only to listen to your parents or to your friends, you have to make your own choices,” he said.

Dr Al Hammadi also called for the need to collect better data in order to improve the education system.

Fahd Al Rasheed, chief executive officer of the King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia, stressed that the skills gap is not just a Middle East problem, but a worldwide issue. He presented three potential means of tackling this “critical challenge of the next 15 years”.

“First, expanding the job pool,” said Mr Al Rasheed, referring to the need to continue investing in the education infrastructure. Secondly, labour laws in Saudi Arabia, which he said make it nearly impossible to lay off a Saudi employee after two years’ employment, need to be changed.

“It’s very difficult for the private sector to hire, you almost need a policy of allow me to fire so I can hire,” said Mr Al Rasheed. “It’s very hard to give the youth a chance. This is something that needs to be addressed.”