Vocational Education in the UAE. How to organize it in a company?
The high importance of vocational education is due to several factors:
- High competition in the market;
- Rapid implementation of technologies in the economy;
- Employee's need for career growth;
- Need to keep the team working.
Because of these and some other reasons, a business cannot afford to ignore the question of vocational education for its employees. Education is no longer treated as something limited entirely to schools, colleges, and universities. It is a never-ending lifelong process that ensures acquiring new knowledge and enhancing skills.
Realizing the importance of vocational education, as well as all the benefits that a business can receive from implementing a vocational education program, one can proceed to the planning and organization of this process.
So you, as the business owner first have to answer a number of important questions:
- What are your business goals, and accordingly, how should the whole process be organized to achieve these goals?
- Are your employees qualified enough to cope with the task and what does each of them lack?
- Which type of training should be chosen specifically for each employee (or group)?
Let us turn to the considering each of them.
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Statement of the problem.
Of course, one can come down to the point of organizing professional-vocational training with an unstructured approach, but the result will not be so good as it supposed to be, or such that does not justify the money and time spent. You have to start with setting the problem – the global task of your business. For example, it may be the filling a new niche in the market or entering the market of another country. The global task can be divided into a number of smaller ones. The main thing in the planning process is not to forget what the primary goal is.
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Determining of what has to be learned
You have a goal, and you have your team. Do your people have enough knowledge, skills, and experience to solve the task you want them to solve? A complete answer to this question will provide you with initial conditions for the planning specific programs. For an adequate assessment of what is available, what is not available, you need to conduct a comprehensive assessment of all members of your team, and you have to assess not only professional skills and knowledge but their ability to contact with others, the ability to self-organization, motivation, etc., because all these things are important to achieve the goal.
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Choosing the form of training
Having a clear understanding of what has to be achieved and what is missing, you can start choosing specific solutions and planning. Vocational education, depending on goals and objectives, can be conducted in several forms:
- Self-study. In our time there are quite a lot of materials and lessons for self-study over the Internet. However, this form of training is rather limited, and the result may be far from what is expected.
- Remote online learning (online courses, webinars). Remote learning platforms (such as Coursera) offer their solutions for professional training – a good solution, much more effective than self-study, but there are certain restrictions due to the lack of direct contact.
- Classical training (courses, seminars, training, etc.). There is a large variety of forms – courses for more detailed study, seminars and workshops for mastering a specific skill or technique. As professional teachers provide these services, the result will almost certainly be the one you see it.
The combination of different forms and approaches will allow you to get the optimal solution and more benefits of vocational education. A good approach is to look for a comprehensive solution, and in Dubai, the UAE they have such options. The Atton Institute offers both specific courses and entire programs on the most popular areas on the market today. For example, for the task mentioned above of developing a niche in the market, you should consider the following programs: