Education, Training and Skill Development Policies in the Gulf Countries: Macro–Micro Overview

This Chapter uses some secondary data and the macro and firm surveys (Firm Survey. (2002, April). Technological change and skill development: A comparative study of chemical and metal medium and large scale enterprises in the UAE. UAE: Firm Survey) to analyse the educational, training and skill development policies in the Gulf countries. We show that despite the enormous variation in the supply–demand sides of educational policies across the Gulf countries, but the educational policies in the Gulf countries shared several problematic features such as the poor quality, insufficient supply (spending) and demand (enrolment) and the biased structure of tertiary education. We corroborate hypothesis 8 concerning the need for skill and technological upgrading through the reform of the educational and training systems and the transfer of knowledge. We show that the improvement of the educational systems in the Gulf countries is vital and requires improvement of the quality/internal efficiency, supply (investment) and demand (enrolment) sides, particularly by increasing incentives at tertiary and technical education. We show that from the macro–micro views skill development depends on: reforming the educational system; enhancing the provision of training; planning skill needs and matching educational output with market needs; enhancing the transfer of knowledge/schooling effect; and incentives and collaboration between public and private institutions and increasing incentives for private sector investment in education and training in the UAE. We explain that the promotion of local technologies and adoption of appropriate foreign technologies and the interaction between both these to foster economic growth in the UAE depends on skill development. Our results show a serious discrepancy with respect to the implementation of public policies of training and skill upgrading between private and large public firms and divergence in arranging priorities to implement plans, mechanisms and policies for enhancing skill levels, provision of training and transfer of knowledge at the macro–micro levels. Therefore, we recommend further efforts be made to enhance the consistency between the macro–micro views and the public-private sectors, particularly in the arrangement of priorities, plans and mechanisms to ensure more consistent, effective and successful policies for skills development. We confirm our hypothesis 8 that the effective institutional environment and consistent policies of public and private institutions will enhance upskilling plan and skill development.