Jordan Times
Monday, July 09, 2007
King calls for unified measures to upgrade vocational training
His Majesty King Abdullah on Sunday met with senior officials concerned with vocational and technical training to a discuss
a raft of measures aimed at upgrading the sector to meet the requirements of the labour market, the Jordan News Agency, Petra,
reported.
At the meeting, also attended by Her Majesty Queen Rania, the King called for effective mechanisms to develop vocational and
technical training. The target, he said, is to ensure that training meets the demands of the labour market in cooperation
with the private sector.
The King emphasised the need to train youth in certain professions and to allocate specialised centres for this purpose in a
manner that takes into account the nature of economic activity in each governorate.
He also instructed the government to examine the possibility of drawing up a plan to cover all Jordanian workers with health
insurance.
The King highlighted the role that the Jordan Armed Forces plays in training programmes as it teaches the values of
discipline and commitment.
The meeting was held against a backdrop of complaints over inefficiency and the fragmentation of policies to address a
shortage of skilled labour for construction and industrial projects that are attracting billions of dollars in foreign
investment.
In 2005, 26 per cent of students enrolled in secondary schools joined the vocational stream, whereas thousands of
university graduates join the ranks of the unemployed on an annual basis.
Labour Minister Bassem Salem acknowledged at the meeting that there are loopholes in the vocational and technical training
scene. He cited the lack of an umbrella body to coordinate work, absence of coordination among the “fragmented” institutions
offering training in addition to duplicity of projects that receive foreign funding among other shortcomings. Salem said the
vocational training programmes lack a unified syllabus.
To regulate, develop and reform the labour market, the labour minister underlined the importance of establishing a higher
council for the development of human resources, to be chaired by the prime minister and to serve as an umbrella for all
concerned parties.
There is already a Higher Council for Vocational Education but it has rarely convened over the past years and no tangible
results were yielded.
Salem also suggested that the Vocational Training Corporation (VTC) be restructured and be solely confined to training,
while an accreditation, licensing and testing panel should be established to accredit and evaluate vocational training
The suggested commission, he said, would entrust private sector establishments to manage training facilities.
The expected outcome of the reform process, the minister said, is a rise in the percentage of high school graduates enrolling
in training programmes from the current 4.7 per cent to 30 per cent, while the ratio of youth joining training would
constitute 40 per cent of the student population, as compared to the current 26 per cent.
As a result of the proposed reforms, the percentage of students joining academic higher education institutions is expected
to drop from 95.3 per cent to 70 per cent by 2012, the minister said. Unemployment, he added, would go down in the same
period to 9.3 per cent, from the current 13.9 per cent.
Speakers included Minister of Education and Higher Education Khaled Touqan, Head of the Jordan Construction Contractors
Association Sahel Majali and VTC chief Khalil Kurdi, along with President of the Jordan Federation of Trade Unions Mazen
Maaitah and President of the Federation of Jordan Chambers of Commerce Haidar Murad.
Majali said that 150,000 jobs will become available in the booming construction industry, which is expected to have attracted
$50 billion in the coming five years.
Murad also pinpointed the labour shortage in the trade and services sectors.
The trade unions president called for better working conditions and benefits for workers, while Kurdi demanded independence for
the VTC. The establishment has, for the past years, been calling for financial and administrative independence to carry out its mission.