RIYADH, 26 May 2007 — With an increasing number of different types of vocational training available in the Kingdom, many workingwomen feel they need to take one course or another to enhance their career.
However, most of these courses are run by private institutes with the sole aim of making money and target employed women — both in the private and government sectors — who believe that these would help them bridge the gap between their education and the job market needs, according to a report in Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper.
“I’ve attended a number of courses including one on neuro-linguistic programming. I believe that such types of courses are useful in bridging gaps between one’s education and the demands of the local market,” said Reem Abdul Rahman, a government employee.
“One shouldn’t forget the fact that universities and schools can never fully prepare an employee for the job market; it’s only through training that a person can achieve this. ... I’ve personally learned a lot from these courses. I learned about the art of planning and management. They’ve also helped improve my performance,” she added.
Abdul Rahman said that after working for nine years, she felt bored and less productive. “I felt it was important to enroll on to a vocational course,” she said.
Similarly, Haifaa Khaled feels university and college curricula are not sufficient to help people develop appropriate skills for the workplace.
“These courses are important in spite of the fact that they cost around SR3,000 and last for just three days. Employers should develop such courses and offer them at cheap rates to help people develop their skills,” said Khaled.
However, Fatima Al-Qahtani, a Saudi psychologist, believes that the courses are being over-promoted. “It is true that employees need help to improve themselves, but these courses don’t provide people with the real picture. The fake feeling of improving through a few hours spent at a lecture is such a lie,” said Al-Qahtani.
“Some of these courses are far too specific for the lay public. They may be useful for specific workingwomen, it all depends. The remarkable increase in the availability of such courses in recent years is due to the failure by most organizations to provide their employees with proper training,” she added.
Al-Qahtani also believes that most courses are particularly geared to touching women’s emotions. “The way these courses are presented affects women’s soft points and so they find them attractive,” she said.
Providing the perspective of those working in the private sector, Fatima Al-Samary, a company employee, said some of the self-development courses are important and useful.
“Private institutes are competing over our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and sometimes emotions. It is more about being successful and stimulating people’s inner thoughts and feelings,” she said.
However, Al-Samary feels some courses are just a waste of time.
“Many of these courses are useless and very expensive. They seem to be only concerned with making money to the extent that I used to spend my entire month’s salary just to attend a single lecture, without the course hardly benefiting me,” she said.
Al-Samary added that these courses might be good and useful if they were presented in a professional way. “The fact that they are held for mainly materialistic purposes makes them useless,” she said.
Speaking about why the courses are so expensive, Al-Jowhara bint Abdullah told Al-Eqtisadiah that cheap courses are usually of low quality and are run by unqualified instructors. “Expensive courses tend to be of good quality and have professional instructors,” she said.
