Middle East universities must change to deliver a digitally skilled workforce
Governments are starting to drive reforms that will better prepare students for a rapidly transforming employment market
Across the Middle East, young people are eager to acquire the right skills to play their full part in the region’s transformation. Last year, for example, 86% of GCC employees in PwC’s Hopes and Fears survey said they were ready to learn new skills or completely re-train to remain employable in the future. Almost half of them reported that they were learning new skills via free online resources such as podcasts.
Yet the desire of the region’s youthful workforce to upskill after they start their careers is also a call to action for the Middle East’s higher education system. Universities and training institutions are currently not delivering enough graduates with the capabilities that companies urgently need to compete in increasingly global markets driven by new digital technologies. The problem is clear. Too many university courses and teaching methods are still rooted in the pre-digital age, while policymakers and educators are often failing to engage effectively with employers to prepare graduates better for a rapidly evolving workplace.
The way forward is to diversify learning opportunities and give students a broad understanding of multiple disciplines, from the liberal arts and hard sciences to engineering and business management. Higher education in the Middle East has a way to go - with inflexible course design regulations and institutional inability or lack of resources to fully embrace the potential of blended online and classroom learning.
Compounding these problems, some leading Middle East higher education institutions are too focused on trying to climb higher in global university rankings, at the expense of delivering skills and qualifications that are relevant for their students and the region’s economies.
This mindset needs to be reversed. Faculties should take an honest look at their own performance and acquire the necessary skills to use blended teaching methods effectively. They should also place more trust in the ability of students to adapt to a less didactic teaching environment that encourages self-directed learning. By making this shift, higher education institutions will become more innovative, agile, and inclusive - in other words, more like the tech-savvy, knowledge-hungry students they exist to teach.
The UAE – shaking up education to upskill the next generation
All of this makes for a familiar story as far as Middle East employers are concerned. But it’s a tale that might finally have a positive ending, because the region’s governments are starting to rise to the higher education challenge. Consider the UAE, which restructured its education ministry in May. A fresh ministerial team has been tasked with ensuring that graduates have the skills for the workplaces of the future, especially in technology, while a new cabinet-level Federal Authority for Quality and Standards of Education has been established with enhanced regulatory powers.
There are two critical features to the UAE’s higher education reforms that are worth noting. Firstly, they are comprehensive, covering all years from kindergarten onwards. There is no point in overhauling universities and colleges if children are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the new teaching delivery models that leading higher education institutions have begun to use. In many cases, school leavers have to do foundation years to prepare them for university courses, thereby taking longer to complete their degrees.
Secondly, the UAE’s reforms look firmly towards the emirate’s future as an increasingly digitalised and globalised “knowledge” economy. Key measures in the higher education sector include more emphasis on applied learning in STEM subjects, more multi-disciplinary higher diploma programs that help bridge-building between universities and industry, greater use of interactive, digital tools in courses, and increased scope for distance learning. In addition, recent changes to the UAE’s visa regime will allow foreign students to bring their families to live with them, helping to broaden the international diversity of universities and colleges. Another reform will make it easier for students to gain invaluable work experience before graduating.
It will be years before the full impact of the UAE’s programme can be measured. What’s already clear, though, is the urgency of such reforms to realise and sustain the Middle East’s economic transformation. According to PwC analysis, for many public university graduates, only about one-third are in employment in the first six months after graduation, a very low proportion that will forever frustrate their ranking ambitions.
Put brutally, many of these graduates, especially from public institutions, are not ready for the growing number of skilled job vacancies in the Middle East that are being filled through overseas recruitment. To some extent, this is a maturity and self-confidence issue, because young people in the Middle East are generally not encouraged by their parents to take student jobs in their teens, something that is commonplace in other parts of the world. As a result, they lack exposure to the work environment, and when they graduate they often struggle to “sell” themselves to employers as capable and experienced.
To be fair, the Middle East’s higher education system faces the same pressures as universities and training colleges worldwide, which are racing to adapt to the rapidly evolving demands of businesses. Like their international peers, the region’s tertiary education institutions should be offering more, better-designed courses in areas such as digital skills and sustainability – the latter being just as critical given the regional drive to reduce dependency on oil revenues and global efforts to mitigate climate change.
At the same time, higher education leaders should be moving faster to introduce learning models which focus on three key transversal skills to provide students with a better chance of fulfilling their potential in tomorrow’s increasingly tech-driven, sustainable economies. Cognitive skills such as problem-solving need to be reinforced by social and emotional skills and adaptability and resilience skills that improve a student’s communication, emotional intelligence, critical thinking and leadership ability.
Must do better – Middle East employers’ verdict on the higher education sector
What are the principal obstacles slowing progress towards these goals? One awkward challenge is the perception gap between how well the Middle East’s education sector thinks it is doing and the view from the corporate front line. For example, 90% of a recent PwC survey of senior higher education leaders in the region said that their institution was doing well in adapting curricula and delivery models to maximise student success. Yet our experience of working with many employers is that they are not satisfied that the region’s education and training sector can help them fill their skills gaps fast enough.
PwC’s Academy in the Middle East, the largest of 44 such institutes around the world, is one example of how leading employers in the region are turning to the private sector to offer more flexible courses in disciplines such as cybersecurity, digital awareness and leadership skills, as well as internationally recognised professional certifications.
But employers can’t do all the heavy lifting. Middle East governments need to play a far greater role in supporting the higher education sector, with regulators enforcing transparency on performance and outcomes to drive behavioural change inside institutions. Well-intentioned policy changes will fail if teachers lack the skills, authority or will to implement them.
The same modernizing policies will also fall short if they are not adequately funded – and here, too, there are positive signs that Middle East governments have grasped the importance of investing in education at the right scale. Take Saudi Arabia’s Human Capability Development Programme, part of its Vision 2030 agenda, which is projected to cost around $4bn (SAR 15bn), mostly on education and training initiatives. That’s a lot of money, but worth the cost if it delivers a Saudi workforce that is ready to deliver the dynamic, globally competitive future mapped out by Vision 2030.
