JEDDAH, 23 April 2006 — A delegation of senior vocational training experts from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states will visit the UK from today.
The delegation, which includes senior representatives of government training organizations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, will hold talks for five days with various British organizations on matters relating to vocational and technical training in the region.
Occupational skills standards, industrial training and work force mobility are among the main topics on the agenda of the visit, according to Tony Calderbank, assistant director of the British Council, Alkhobar.
“Saudi Arabia is a leading country within the GCC in setting occupational skills standards and it has acknowledged experience in that field,” Calderbank said.
Setting and applying occupational skills standards in the GCC will allow labor mobility because it will give a worker the chance to work anywhere in the region, he noted.
Dr. Saleh ibn Abdulrahman Al-Amr, deputy governor of the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training, and Dr. Tareq Al-Thwaini, deputy director for curriculum design at GOTEVOT will represent Saudi Arabia.
While in the UK the delegation will meet representatives of the British Council, the Department for Education and Skills and other UK bodies. They will also visit a number of colleges, including Dudley, where a group of Gulf trainers are currently undergoing an industrial trainer and assessor course, and Westminster Kingsway College.
The visit, sponsored by the British Council as part of its Regional Vocational Education and Training Project, will be the first of its kind to bring together specialists from across the region and their British counterparts, he explained.
Calderbank said that the British Council would hold a course in writing skills standards later this year in Riyadh. Professionals from all over the Gulf will meet and learn from the Saudi experience in that field.
