JEDDAH, 7 January — Four hundred young Saudis will be trained in automobile engineering every two years with the launch of a new Saudi-Japanese venture here. The project, seen as part of the Saudization drive, will offer high level training in automobile maintenance.
Construction work for setting up the Saudi Japanese Automobile High Institute will begin soon, Salim Al-Asmarei, the project's director, told Arab News yesterday. It will be built on a 71,000-square meter plot made available by the government near the King Khaled National Guard Hospital at the Jeddah-Makkah Highway. The construction will cost approximately SR51 million, he added.
The idea of setting up the training institute took shape following the visit of Crown Prince Abdullah, the deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, to Japan in October 1998. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was subsequently signed between the two governments.
Al-Asmarei said a feasibility study was conducted on the basis of the MoU by two working groups from the Japan Automobile Manufacturers' Association (JAMA) and the Japanese Automobile Distributors in the Kingdom (JADIK). JAMA and JADIK will share the project costs.
The institute, which is set to open in September 2002, will offer a two-year technical curriculum in automotive maintenance licensed by the General Organization for Technical Education & Vocational Training. The faculty staff will comprise 50 members.
"Each two-year program will involve both theoretical and practical training at the institute as well as the premises of the distributors who are members of JADIK. The distributors will employ trainees who successfully complete the course Al-Asmarei said. JADIK includes Toyota (Abdul Latif Jameel), Nissan (AlHamrani United), Mazda (Haji Hussein Alireza), Suzuki (Suzuki Saudia-Bamarouf), Daihatsu and Subaru (Balubaid), and Isuzu (Bakhashab).
Trainees will be selected from high school science graduates. The intensive program spread over 38 hours a week will be taught in English. A leading English language training institute will be commissioned to provide language instruction as part of the program.
Elaborating on the curriculum, Al-Asmarei said the targeted level of skills for graduates will be equivalent to level 3 of the maintenance engineering qualification under the Japanese National Certification System.
The Japanese government is supporting the venture by providing some of the equipment including 100 cars and training materials for the institute and its workshops. It will also dispatch experts from Japan and receive Saudis for training as junior instructors. Five of the Japanese experts will be permanently stationed here for training Saudis as junior instructors.
"Such Saudi trainees will be trained with different distributors here for six to eight months and then sent to Japan for further training for a period of nine to 12 months," Al-Asmarei said.
