Dubai: There is an urgent need to reform the educational system in the region in order to produce graduates with skills needed by industry and business, according to a symposium on employability organised by the British Council this week.
The symposium held in Cairo pointed to how development indicators show that economics and quality of life positively correlate with English proficiency because English is the global language of business, meaning it facilitates greater foreign trade that leads to greater national income and human development as people can get better paid jobs if they speak English.
It highlighted how the UAE is an employment magnet attracting skilled labour from different parts of the world and performs better in English proficiency than its counterparts in the MENA due to the high expatriate populations who have decent levels of English.
Although regional governments on an average allocate 19 per cent of their budget to education - compared to a world average of 14.5 per cent – the symposium stressed the need for governments, business and educational institutions to reform the educational system so that graduates are equipped with 21st century skills, covering not just the use of new technologies but also soft skills like interpersonal communication and proficiency in the English language.
Key platform
Adrian Chadwick, Regional Director, British Council, MENA, told XPRESS ahead of the meet: “This symposium provides an important platform for building effective regional alliances between business, government and the education system. Such alliances are critical in order to deliver improvements in education that match the rapidly changing demands of the labour market. Whilst youth unemployment is a global problem, the challenges in the Arab world are specific to the region and require innovative thinking and responses framed within the new regional context.”
The symposium said official statistics show that of the 300 million people living in the region, 100 million are aged between 15-29, making MENA the world’s most youthful population. They also show that four million young people enter the job market in the region annually, with only 24 per cent of females participating in the labour force.
