Speech by Ms. Christine McNab
UNDP Resident Representative
“Employment Support Services Workshop”
Assessment of Gaps between Knowledge/Skills Acquired through Higher Education and Labor Market Demands in Jordan
Thursday, 15 December 2005
Your Excellency, the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Dr. Khaled Touqan
Excellencies
Esteemed guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Allow me first to extend a warm welcome to all of you who have joined us here today to participate in the “Employment Support Services Workshop” organized within the context of our project with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
The project contributes to the common objective of the Government of Jordan and UNDP of unemployment reduction in the country and complements ongoing initiatives tackling this issue. One of the identified causes of unemployment in Jordan is the gap between the outputs of the Higher Education System and labour market requirements. The Higher Education System currently in place is based on traditional methods of learning with little focus on developing the capacities which are often as “soft skills”, such as communication and presentation skills, teamwork and independent research.
At the same time, intermediation programs between the labour market and the academia are ineffective. Hence, the full potential of the graduates’ in terms of skills and capacity remains underutilized. As the youth is the target group most affected by this problem and as more than half of the Jordanian population is under 25 years of age the need to support and invest in this human resource with improved education and better job opportunities has become urgent.
The UNDP Arab Human Development Report of 2002 entitled “Creating Opportunities for Future Generations” has delivered a message identifying the knowledge deficit as one of three deficits in the region holding back development. The report stressed the need of synergy between education and the economic system, specifically with respect to higher education institutions and provided recommendations for the education system to harmonize its structure, input and output with the needs of production, development and progress. This deficit was explored in depth in the AHDR of 2003 entitled “Building a Knowledge Society”.
The project at hand comes as a response to the above mentioned issues. It aims to achieve long term developmental goals by building on the existing human capabilities and maximizing potential. It also contributes to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, through providing better employment opportunities for young men and women, thereby contributing to sustainable efforts in poverty alleviation, employment generation and gender equality. The direct objectives of the project are to define the gap between the academia and the labour market, identify its characteristics and make both policy and operational recommendations for ways to bridge it.
The success of this project depends on partnerships with different stakeholders. It is only through the latter that the desired institutional flexibility, both in structure and content can be achieved, thereby becoming responsive to the needs of the market. This workshop marks a milestone in the life of the project, as it aims to provide needed guidelines for the future employment support services in Jordan, by drawing on your experience, opinions and suggestions.
I would finally like to stress that this project is considered a catalyst that should lead to more elaborate interventions to address this gap in a sustainable manner including the institutionalization of a monitoring and evaluation system that tracks the changes in both the educational system and the labor market. I am confident that this can be made possible through commitment by all of us.
In closing, I would like to seize this opportunity to thank our government partner, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and all our partners for their ongoing efforts to realize the potential of this project and to wish the project continued success in its implementation.
Thank you all.