JEDDAH, 20 July 2004 — The Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s Syeda Khadija bint Khuwailid Center for Business Women is to offer a legal umbrella to women’s training centers. It will enable them to conduct a variety of courses that they are otherwise restricted by law from offering, according to Dr. Nadia Mohammad Saleh Baeshen, general manager of the center.

Under the current law and regulations, women’s training centers cannot conduct courses or training except in English language and computers.

“We probably are the first chamber of commerce in the Kingdom to support this segment of women who have invested so much in training but have never really been allowed to do anything except in English and computers,” Baeshen told Arab News in an interview yesterday.

She said that there was a huge gap between the output of the education system and the requirements of the labor market. More job opportunities are opening up for women, and the gap is getting wider.

“Women are now to be allowed as saleswomen in lingerie and cosmetic shops,” she said. “If a women’s group can come up with a package to train women in sales, the center will give its seal of approval and if the group does not have the know-how, the center will train their trainers.”

Companies can now employ women in data entry and accounts and many “back-office” jobs are being offered to women. However, they still lack the experience and the skills. This is where programs to re-qualify the girls graduating from high schools and universities will have great effect by fitting graduates to the requirements of the jobs opening up now.

Baeshen said that the chamber has been allowed to conduct an “endless variety” of training programs for women through the center.

Plans to extend the spread of the legal umbrella to other women and centers are under consideration.

The range of facilities the center can offer includes use of space to expertise.

“We can offer our facilities, our packages, our trainers, to develop other programs that we don not have. If they have an idea we can, for a fee, help design the package,” Baeshen said.

She said that there is a huge market and the chamber’s strategy is to not monopolize it, but to support it.

“We give opportunities to women who own centers, and have facilities, but cannot utilize these fully because of the rules and regulations,” she added.

All aspects of the new program were explained at a meeting last week, attended by a majority of the nearly 40 women’s training centers operating in the city. They were briefed about the criteria and conditions for getting the seal of approval and qualifying for working under the center’s legal umbrella.

“Whoever does not meet these could be helped to qualify,” she said.

The chamber announced at the meeting that it would not be running courses in English and computers this year, but leaving that to the other centers. The move was greeted with enthusiasm, as the chamber’s subsidized courses had been competing heavily with the independent training establishments.