A seminar held by a local media group discussed Qatar's education system and the country's workforce needs. Leading educators who participated said education needs to meet the future requirements of the economy, with an emphasis on white-collar workers as well as technicians and operators. The group said a balance between these two is required for a smoothly operating society.
Through heavy investment, Qatar has shown it can achieve high standards in education, but it needs to increase the number of students that it releases into the labour market. The main challenge it faces is its small population and explosive GDP growth rate. The nominal GDP growth was 24.2% in 2006.
At this stage, Qatar is making the right moves for educational policy, but it's simply moving too fast for the graduate numbers to catch up to the required levels, Harald Jorch, managing director of College of the North Atlantic-Qatar told OBG. He went onto explain there needs to be a correlation between matching the skills demanded by the private sector and the courses offered by educational institutions.
Education reform at all levels began in 2000. Qatar University was expanded and reorganised and the structure of state-funded schools was changed to prepare the students for a tougher learning environment.
Much of this reform has been achieved under the efforts of the Qatar Foundation, a non-profit organisation for education, science and community development. In 1995, the foundation invited institutions it believed would best supply the needs of the Qatari economy. American universities, including Virginia Commonwealth, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon and Georgetown, as well as Weill Cornell Medical College, have established branches of their campuses at Education City, a 2500-acre campus on the outskirts of Doha. The campus also hosts numerous other educational and research institutions.
There is a growing concern about the shortage of educated people needed to fill jobs in the country's workforce. Educational outputs are mismatched with the needs of the business sector, depriving the country of the trained people it needs. At the same time, current laws restricting the number of foreign workers available to the private sector combined with low graduate numbers are failing to meet the increasing workforce demand.
Qatar's Labour Market Strategy (LMS), prepared by the World Bank, reported there are weak links between the education and the labour market and a decreasing share of Qatari population in the private sector.
According to a Standard Chartered Bank report, Qatar needs to increase its university graduate turnover, while also easing its labour laws if it is to improve its competitiveness.
There are restrictions on the labour pool available at the moment, which means problems sourcing staff. Then with the nationality restrictions, companies are limited to the number of people from a certain country, which can be difficult if you require specialised people, Philip Mathew, chief operating officer of Business Trading Company told OBG.
Of a total work force of 438,000 people, around 50,000 are nationals and 90% of them are in the public sector. The major goal of the educational reform remains to reduce the dependency on foreign workers in certain strategic sectors, such as energy and industry.
© Oxford Business Group 2007
