Going for Goals with the MKI-DS - (EPP) Egypt

HUMAN RESOURCES
By Niveen Sakr* |
Photos by Ralf Bäcker
Going for Goals with the MKI-DS
REMEMBER THE OPENING CONFEDERATIONS CUP MATCH BETWEEN
BRAZIL AND THE AFRICAN CHAMPION, EGYPT IN JUNE? ONCE AGAIN
THE EGYPTIAN PLAYERS PROVED THEY CAN KEEP UP WITH THE TOP
INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAMS. BUT THAT IS ONLY HALF THE
STORY: THE TWO GOALS BY MOHAMED ZIDAN – WHO PLAYS FOR
BORUSSIA DORTMUND IN THE GERMAN BUNDESLIGA – WERE A TESTAMENT NOT ONLY TO THE WEAKNESS OF THE BRAZILIAN DEFENCE,
BUT ALSO TO THE QUALITY OF EGYPT’S GAME.
ome similarities can be found between the
excitement and entertainment of the
match – not to mention the disputes concerning
the Brazilians’ controversial winning penalty
kick – and the Egyptian labour market.
Obviously, not every young footballer can
become a world class player like Zidan, but all
the same, every graduate should be able to
expect qualified support to smooth their entry
into their careers and provide them with eco-
S
nomic and social security in the long term.
As every fan already knows, there is
plenty of football talent in Egypt, and this is
no less true in the education sector and the
labour market. Egypt’s labour market has a
lot to offer, especially with regard to Egyptian
youth. Offers, however, are no guarantee to
success. Success can only be brought about
through quick, efficient placements in the
labour market that make the transition from
Today, 52.8% of those who graduated from MKI-DS in 2008 are in work, while 56.2% of them are currently
pursuing further studies.
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school to working life easier for young people, closing the wide gap between education
and vocational careers.
One quick look at the demographics of
Egypt, its shortcomings become very clear.
About 80% of the unemployed in Egypt are
aged between 15 and 24, and this is the core
group of unemployed, who urgently need
labour market orientation. The distribution of
unemployment figures among the sexes
reveal another issue: 32% of young men and
59% of women are jobless, without even the
prospect of finding long-term, gainful and
acceptable employment.
Many young Egyptians start on the path to
employment by studying at a technical secondary school (TSS). A total of 2.4 million students are registered at these schools, and the
prospects of finding permanent employment
remain very remote for them. The MubarakKohl Initiative for Dual System (MKI-DS) offers
a more viable alternative.
The initiative enables students to attend
formal schooling twice a week and gain invaluable experience in a real workplace for four
days a week. According to figures, this has
proved a great success in practice. The main
impact of the MKI-DS is that it has significantly facilitated the transition from schooling to
careers by building vocational identity. It has
transformed the technical career choice from a
dead-end option to one of interactive employability that leads to gainful and acceptable
employment opportunities.
Interactive employability is a prerequisite
for gainful and acceptable employment for
both individuals concerned. It allows them to
become and remain employable while potential employers will learn to employ people
effectively and retain good recruits. Employers
and jobseekers need to be able to exchange
information; to articulate and consider interests, needs and expectations; and to enter into
a dialogue with the intention of reaching a balance of interests that optimizes the transition
from school to workplace. Mutual understanding of what both employer and jobseeker
requires in a working situation, and accommodating both sets of interests, is most likely to
result in the desired outcome, improve productivity and provide better employment status, for the benefit of both parties.
Interrelations:
Changing Attitudes Among MKI-DS Graduates
A tracer study of the MKI-DS graduates of
2008 identifies six key areas in which the initiative has had an impact on enhancing the traditional role of the TSS:
Increasing interactive employability
Enhancing the relevance of workplace
training
Improving the flow of information regarding
the labour market
Loyalty to specialization and vocational
identity
Commitment to further learning
Increasing ambition to become either better
in a job or to develop increased entrepreneurship
The study shows that MKI-DS graduates
favour technical education over general education because it teaches a vocation, provides
early exposure to practical experience and
increases job opportunities. They prefer MKIDS to TSS because it is both theoretical and
practical, builds relationships between them
and the companies, has a better curriculum,
there is a prestige associated with the name
and employers favour MKI-DS graduates.
Today, 52.8% of those who graduated
from MKI-DS in 2008 are employed; while
56.2% of them are currently pursuing further
studies, many who are working at the same
time. It has become clear that young people
are aware of the cost of opportunity, are committed to specialization and have a desire to
attain further qualifications in their field. The
MKI-DS has produced young workers who
constructively question the quality of their jobs.
The retention rate, which has traditionally been
very low for first-time employees in Egypt, has
increased from 9% to more than 32% with the
MKI-DS graduates of 2008; they are still with
the same employer they were with, under the
initiative.
These are the facts and figures but there
is also evidence of real success in the individual stories of young Egyptians who have participated in the MKI-DS. Take for instance the
example of Kholoud S who graduated from the
MKI-DS in 2004. Now, the mother of a one
year-old boy, she is working in her field of specialisation with the same employer whom she
trained with for three years under the initiative.
As a trainee, she had to commute daily from
downtown to 6th of October City, not an easy
thing to do, but she did. She enjoyed learning
and working, and learning to work. She says,
“at the beginning of my training I was totally
confused. I had to do many things at the same
time. But today, I know I can do everything in
my job although I might never have done it
before.”
Combining motherhood with a full-time
employment is a challenge, but Kholoud is still
perserving ahead. For the last three years, she
has been pursuing further studies in her specialist field of business administration.
Clearly the MKI-DS helped her not only to
develop stamina and vocational identity, but
also to create a perception of herself as a
young, modern Egyptian woman who knows
her responsibilities, her dreams and, most
importantly, how to transform them to reality.
Coming back to the first point, success on
the playing field of the Egyptian labour market
requires more than mere efforts by the individual. Basic reforms in the labour market are
essential and there is an urgent need in
Egyptian politics for vision and the commitment. There is a need to make the vision a
reality in much the same way top footballers
like Mohamed Zidan, Essam El Hadari or
Mohamed Homos have done. It is time for
someone to take a position on the political
playing field of labour market policies to ensure
gainful and acceptable employment for young
Egyptians. FORMAT
WORKSHOP
Course
Emotional and Social
Intelligence Workshop
Highlights
The workshop’s objective is to help managers raise performance at work by enhancing interaction with team members, clients,
associates, and spouse through channelling
their Emotional Quotient (EQ) capabilities
to the organizational vital singes OVS (trust,
adaptability, accountability, collaboration,
leadership, and alignment) and accordingly
will boost overall performance in customer
service, productivity and retention.
The workshop will teach you ways to:
1. Know Yourself
By increasing the understanding of the biology of emotions, improving your ability to
recognize and understand emotions, learning new self-awareness tools and defining
patterns, and becoming more aware of
leadership patterns
2. Choose Yourself
By increasing awareness of managing emotions for effective leadership, learning self
management, increasing awareness of connection between physical, mental and emotional state and how these drive performance and learning how to use an optimistic
approach
3. Give Yourself
By defining awareness to the value of
empathy, learning authentic appreciation
tool for practicing empathy, defining your
noble goals and increase the value of leading from purpose, increasing ability to usefully engage emotions to motivate and
inspire and increasing the ability to apply
EQ.
Registration
Please contact FORMAT for exact dates of the
courses and for registration:
Tamer Darwish, COO - FORMAT
(ext. 508)
Malak Kattan, training officer
(ext. 530)
Sherif Kotb, training coordinator
(ext. 509)
German-Arab Chamber of Industry and Commerce
21, Soliman Abaza St., off Jamet El Dowal El Arabia
St., 5th Floor Mohandessin, Giza, Egypt.
Tel: +20 2 33368183
Fax: +20 2 33368786
E-mail: [email protected]
* Niveen Sakr is the Director of the Programme Management Unit of
Mubarak-Kohl Initiative for Vocational Education, Training and
Employment (PMU/MKI-vetEP) - a programme supported by GTZ on behalf
of the German Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ)
in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of International Cooperation.
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