Research 'needs to be encouraged'

Dubai The country lacks universities offering postgraduate degrees and the government needs to set up the infrastructure that will encourage more research, according to the vice-chancellor of the British University in Dubai.

Dr Abdullah Al Shamsi is the first UAE national to hold a vice-chancellor position at a private university in the UAE. He assumed his responsibilities in February.

Dr Shamsi believes the status of postgraduate degrees in the UAE at the moment is "normal".

"The UAE is now... 36 years old. Education used to be restricted to UAE University. The Higher Colleges of Technology and Zayed University came in 20 years later. Private universities are also five to 10 years old," he said.

"The concentration on undergraduate studies is natural and I think universities would eventually advance and start offering more postgraduate degrees."

He said postgraduate programmes come hand in hand with research options. "I am not going to say the research environment in the country is perfect. The government needs to set up the infrastructure by enacting laws to encourage research."

Dr Shamsi said the programmes most sought after are engineering, business administration, information technology and human resources.

He said human resource programmes are especially needed because "it's a fast-growing field and the Ministry of Labour has stipulated that human resources professionals should be UAE nationals".

He said a lot of Emiratis from professional backgrounds such as engineering and business, would be interested in such courses.

Concentration

However, "the UAE is a small country that cannot offer all postgraduate programmes. So the concentration is going to be mostly on a number of [fields] the country will need".

He said bachelor degrees have become "something standard". "It is only the cream of students who get accepted in masters degree programmes and this will differentiate them as employees," he said.