JEDDAH, 16 June — Come the next academic year, technical colleges in the Kingdom will offer courses only in areas where there is demand for fresh graduates in the job market, according to Ali Al-Ghafid, governor of the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training (GOTEVOT).
Speaking to Arab News, Al-Ghafid said the GOTEVOT decided to make this radical switch after a detailed study of the kind of technical education available in the most industrially advanced countries, with the aim of finding solutions to problems faced by the technical education sector here.
“If the training does not relate to the needs of the labor market, it has no point,” the governor stated.
On a question of the apparent contradiction in the private establishments’ increasing demand for Saudis with skill in English and GOTEVOT’s efforts in the direction of offering training in the Arabic language, the governor said that the stress was on teaching technical or specialized English and not on the basics of the language.
He said he believed that the students passing secondary school examinations should be proficient in English in general, but a trainee in the field of applied electronics should be taught words and expressions related solely to electronics.
He emphasized that his organization monitors the activities of the private institutes for technical training to ensure that they maintain the required standards on their courses.
Institutes which fail to keep these high standards will have their license canceled, he added.
GOTEVOT is also making efforts to offer training courses for Saudis to qualify them for work in slaughter houses in light of plans to Saudize them.
Some 30,000 foreign butchers are brought into the Kingdom temporarily to work during the Haj season, despite the fact that it only takes one month for a Saudi to be trained to do the job.
