Crescent Petroleum: Preparing young people for work in the new norm

"Everyone has a stake in preparing young people for work in wake of Covid-19," says CEO of Crescent Petroleum, in a message to business leaders

Speaking at the World Economic Forum's "Jobs Reset Summit" Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum, emphasised that companies and business leaders must play a role in helping young people learn the new skills necessary to succeed in this emerging new world.  

In discussing the important role of business in the re-skilling effort, Jafar is highlighting the success of the Crescent-sponsored Edraak Career Readiness programme, a three-part online employee preparedness and soft skills course that has had close to 240,000 young people in the Arab world register so far, to learn English language, basic computer skills, and general office skills. The course went live during the outbreak of Covid-19 and has received considerable attention.

"We believe online education programmes like this can significantly support young people continue to develop and grow their skills for the modern workplace, and we are proud to be half way towards our goal of boosting the employability skills of half a million youth across the region," says Jafar. "Industry research has highlighted that the single biggest impediment to youth employment is the lack of basic skills in these key areas required for today's job market. That has never been more critical as the economic uncertainty brought on by Covid-19 heightens the emphasis on such core skills."

The Edraak Career Readiness programme is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs), offering free and open online courses that aim to boost the employability skills of young people across the MENA region. The programme's goal is to train 500,000 young people with skills not necessarily taught in school or university, but which are critical to getting ahead in the new world of work. The programme continues to accept registrations free of charge and aims to prepare young prospective job seekers in the basics of communicating and working in the modern workplace.

The World Economic Forum Jobs Reset Summit is being held online from October 20-23, convening leaders from business, government, civil society, media and the broader public around the world to create a new vision, new standards and new partnerships to mobilise the best of human capabilities, technologies, innovative policies and market forces in service of a new vision to we can proactively shape more inclusive, fair and sustainable economies, organisations, societies and workplaces.