Varsities at Najah to woo students

Najah, the Capital’s largest education and career fair which was officially inaugurated on Tuesday, proves to be an important platform for higher education institutions looking to attract students and meeting qualified young Emirati professionals.

The Masdar Institute (MI), which started its training programme for selected Emirati fresh graduates in April this year, found two of their candidates from last year’s Najah.

“We are looking to recruit talented Emirati staff in administration to build the base of national staff with academic calibre. It’s rare to find UAE nationals with academic background in admin,” said Sara Al Muhairi, HR director of MI. The sixth-month programme aims at training the candidates in HR, finance, marketing, communications, IT, student affairs and administration staff roles.

Emirati employees at MI grew to 42 per cent last year from 28 per cent in 2010. The target is to reach 50 per cent by the end of the year. Within the three-day exhibition, MI intends to collect CVs of talented individuals who would join the second batch of its programme in January next year. The institute targets to train around 10 to 15 fresh graduates every year.

At this year’s Najah, MI also hopes to attract high-achieving Emiratis who graduated with Science, IT and Engineering degrees to join any of its eight master’s programmes.

MI currently has 337 graduate students, 41 per cent of whom are UAE nationals.

The rest come from 40 different countries. Seeking to encourage students in the engineering field, ALHOSN University is highlighting its new accreditation from the prestigious Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in the US.

Professor Abdul Rahim Sabouni, vice chancellor and CEO of ALHOSN University, said that his university is the first private university in Abu Dhabi to receive ABET accreditation for its Civil Engineering programme and the only one in the entire UAE to be officially recognised by ABET for its Industrial and Software Engineering programmes.

“Getting such accreditation (proves)... that the engineering programmes in the country are up to international standards,” he told Khaleej Times.

He added that passing board rate of ALHOSN engineering graduates is between 80 and 90 per cent. The Abu Dhabi University has also announced at Najah Education, Training and Careers Exhibition its new Bachelor of Arts in Arts, Culture and Heritage Management programmes. It also showcased its 25 bachelor degrees and eight master’s programmes that are being offered at the university.

Also several international higher education institutions have come in full force at the show, starting with EducationUSA which hosted 20 American universities that included Ohio University; Iowa State University; University of California Irvine; University of Buffalo, State University of New York; and University of Illinois, Chicago, among others.

Other international participants include Education Malaysia; Henley Business School, UK; Sendagaya Japanese Institute, Macquarie University, Australia and University of Alberta, Canada.

Najah 2012 is seeing the participation of 120 local and international higher education institutions, including 20 from the US, offering over 500 academic and vocational training programmes

olivia@khaleejtimes.com