@britishcouncil DEVELOPING VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION CAPACITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  

Aptis, an innovative global English assessment tool on exhibition at the GETENERGY VTEC MENA 2013

As the oil and gas sector continues to offer growing numbers of job opportunities across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) amid increasing employment equity policies, vocational training is seen to be equally important as academic education.

While academic education has always been key to ensuring a bright future, the British Council believes that in the current increasingly competitive job market vocational life skills are also necessary for students or early career starters – not only to succeed in finding a good job, but also to help hold onto their job for much longer.

To cultivate job-ready employees who are able to meet the human resources and vocational needs of today’s sector requires that students and graduates narrow the gap between academic education and the employment sector's demand for professional soft skills acumen.

Marc Jessel, the British Council’s Country Director for the UAE, commented at the Getenergy VTEC International Conference being held at the Abu Dhabi Polytechnic throughout this week, that: “Changes in the external environment have led to increased interest globally in the importance of skills development.

“Skills development is seen as an essential element in promoting economic prosperity and in supporting young people to gain employment or create their own opportunities.  Up-skilling is seen by governments, employers and educators as gradually more crucial and there is a greater demand than ever before for employable skills.”

Support for education providers in creating skilled young people who can operate in a globally competitive and ever-changing job market, is at the very heart of the British Council’s Cultural Relations work.

“Up-skilling the current and future workforce for the oil and gas sector is critical and will be the main focus of this conference.  Skills for the 21^st century will be on top of everyone’s agenda and the programme will encourage an open debate as to how everyone can respond more effectively to the challenge,” according to Jessel.

He also said that the British Council recently launched Aptis, an affordable English proficiency assessment tool that allows organisations to test the language skills of current and prospective employees.

Once Aptis has identified the English language skill gaps that exist, the British Council can provide the appropriate training courses required at each level, either through existing courses or courses tailored to an organisation’s needs.

Aptis can be put to the test at the British Council’s stand at the Getenergy VTEC International Conference.

Jessel said that the British Council would not only promote Aptis at the conference, but it would also use the platform to further explore how the Council listens and responds to the needs of employers.

“Our work across the globe has reached over 580-million people last year alone.  The UK is rightly perceived as a leader in developing collaboration between education and business.  This has resulted in positive change in vocational educational and training across many countries,” Jessel concluded.

For more information on Aptis, please visit www.britishcouncil.org/aptis