Egypt is tapping into British expertise to enhance vocational training and the employability of its labour force, reports Mohamed El-Sayed "The real challenge facing Egyptian industry is finding young people equipped with the skills needed in the labour market," stressed Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid during a conference titled "Egypt-UK: Partnerships for Employability", held earlier this month at the headquarters of the Egyptian Federation of Industries in Cairo in cooperation with the British Embassy. Rachid's remarks highlighted one of the key problems facing Egyptian industry -- dozens of thousands of technical labour force members graduating every year from secondary vocational schools who cannot find jobs because of their poor vocational skills. To deal with this, the government has recently made upgrading vocational training in secondary schools to meet international standards a high priority on its agenda. "One of the key measures the Egyptian government has recently taken to deal with the global financial crisis is increasing the budget earmarked for industrial training programmes," said Rachid. "The government believes that investing in human resources is all important, and whatever the ramifications and the negative effects of the current global financial crisis, the government will never stop investing in human resources," Rachid pointed out. In its quest, the ministry has entered into a partnership with the UK to benefit from its broad expertise in vocational and industrial training. The most recent manifestation of this partnership was a visit by a 25-strong delegation of British technical colleges, vocational and professional training providers and education consultants. The mission of the partnership, according to British Ambassador to Egypt Dominic Asquith, was "bridging the skills gap by introducing new skills, and improving existing skills, which is essential if Egypt is to continue to enjoy high economic growth." "This [training] programme is aimed at helping people who are already in the labour market and those who will enter it," stressed Asquith. "It is designed to increase the capabilities of the Egyptian workforce to be able to compete in a highly inter-dependent, and challenging economy," he added. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, Asquith stressed that developing employment skills and knowledge transfer between the UK and Egypt is the most important item on his agenda. "Britain takes [this issue] very seriously as its responsibility in terms of partnership... as Britain is the biggest foreign investor in Egypt." In fact, in the last three months there have been three Egyptian- British trade missions, focussing on transferring knowledge to the Egyptian workforce. The aim of the delegation is to basically develop real projects aimed at upgrading the systems of secondary technical schools. To achieve this, throughout 2008 there has been a continuous dialogue between Egyptian industrial and educational authorities and British experts in the area of skills for employment. This dialogue involved a visit by a fact-finding mission of the UK's Middle East Association, and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET UK) in June 2008, and a UK-government sponsored visit to London in November 2008 by the head of the Alexandria Education Committee. In addition, the Egyptian British Business Council has run business master classes in Egypt with the backing of the Egyptian Industrial Training Council. Also, the British Council is scheduled to launch a programme called Skills for Employability, aimed at building young Egyptian people and adults' skills, enabling them to work and compete in today's highly competitive world.
