Friday, Nov 14, 2008

Gulf News

The issue of unemployment among the UAE nationals has been a hot topic of discussion not only within the country but also in the Gulf region.

The National Human Resources Development and Employment AuthorityNational Human Resources Development and Employment Authority; known as TanmiaTanmia, while participating in a workshop in Doha, Qatar, from October 21 to 23, presented a study regarding this.

TanmiaTanmia's representative listed eight major factors that caused the significant increase in the number of UAE unemployment rate at the workshop titled Unemployment in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries - Towards a Strategy that Faces its Implications.

According to the study, the factors include:

- the increasing gap between the skills of the national job-seeker and the labour market;

- the mismatch between education outputs and work placement courses (training);

- most unemployed nationals expect salaries more than what is offered by employers; the actual salary paid to nationals in a particular job is much more than what is paid to expatriates in the same job;

- the very low production levels of national employees; the difference in work conditions between the private and public sectors; the procedures and regulations of the labour market are not sufficiently advanced; and finally the increasing income levels have weakened the motivation for work among the nationals.

TanmiaTanmia also has stated that the unemployment rate in the UAE is approximately 2.3 per cent while the international unemployment rate is 7 per cent.

According to the figures published by TanmiaTanmia, there are 11,823 nationals who search for jobs.

It is important to indicate that TanmiaTanmia was established in 1999 in order to achieve many goals including generating job opportunities for the UAE national workforce; cutting down the unemployment ratio; improving the skills and productivity of the national workforce; and proposing the appropriate policies to the government in terms of implementing the policy of Emiratisation.

Better reasons

Since 2004, TanmiaTanmia has been attributing many reasons for the continuous unemployment condition among nationals. For example, one of the studies published by TanmiaTanmia in 2004 examined the problems facing many local graduates who attempted to find the appropriate jobs in the private sector.

The study indicated many reasons for that situation such as low wages; long work hours and heavy work load; lack of the appropriate training courses; most jobs require the English language and a certain level of skills that many national graduates did not possess and, more over, many higher education courses did not match the needs of the labour market.

It is imperative to assert that TanmiaTanmia at that time proposed several actions that, I believe, have never been implemented.

However, my primary concern on the issue of unemployment among the nationals is the tendency of TanmiaTanmia to keep repeating similar reasons for years.

I refer here to two important reasons; the increasing gap between the skills of the nationals who search for jobs and the skills required in the labour market; and the mismatch between education outputs and work placement courses (training).

For the last three years I have been examining the policies of two higher education institutions in the area of preparing national students for employment.

These institutions are the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT)Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) and Ajman University for Science and Technology Network (AUST)Ajman University for Science and Technology Network (AUST).

As part of my study, I interviewed 122 national graduates from both institutions whereby the questions focused on key areas, including the skills gained during higher education programmes and the benefits of the work placement courses (training).

On the one hand, both higher education institutions aim to equip their students with specific skills that help them whether they work in the public or the private sector after graduation.

The HCTHCT and AUSTAUST have the skills integrated within their curriculum. The HCTHCT provides its skills, or Graduate Outcomes, that include Communication and Information Literacy; Critical Thinking; Problem-solving and Interdisciplinary Exploration; Global Awareness; Information Technology; Self management and Lifelong Learning; Teamwork and Leadership; and Vocational Competencies.

AUSTAUST also offers the employment skills based on the needs of the labour market. These skills include critical thinking; problem solving; IT skills; and English language. On the other hand, most of the graduates whom I met have stated that work placement course was useful for them and they identified 21 advantages of the programme. These include gaining work experience; acceptable preparation for future career; the ability to utilise higher education courses and skills during work placement course; and how to deal with multicultural people and employees from different managerial levels. This experience helped most graduates understand the real situations of the labour market.

Although many graduates have demanded imparting of more practical skills and longer period of work placement; there is a common belief among them that both higher education institutions equip the nationals with basic skills required for the first job in addition to giving them an acceptable level of training in the final year of study.

Therefore, I believe that there are many other higher education institutions in the UAE that implement the appropriate policies of preparing national students for employment. What we really need, and TanmiaTanmia is a major factor in this area, is to have a long term strategy that includes three key actions.

The first is to conduct a comprehensive survey in order to define the current higher education policies of preparing the national students for employment.

The second is to enforce a federal plan in all higher education institutions where all national students would be equipped with similar skills and work placement courses.

The third action is to encourage employers in both private and public sectors to organise staff development courses for national fresh employees in order to equip them with more practical skills needed for different jobs.

Abdullah Al Shaiba is a UAE national academic and thinker

© Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.

 

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