Business Leaders’ Perspectives on the Role of Education and the Skillset Required in United Arab Emirates’ Knowledge Economy
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Date
2019-08
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The British University in Dubai (BUiD)
Abstract
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is traditionally known for its vast oil reserves and
associated wealth, however the Government has accentuated the necessity to
transform into a knowledge economy. In order to do so it has reformed its education
system with the objective of developing the requisite skills required in a knowledge
economy during the formal education period. The purpose of this research is to obtain
in-depth understanding of whether senior business leaders of large and medium
companies operating in the UAE considered education to be a means of developing a
knowledge economy skill set, and if education was important, how successful had it
been in enhancing the availability of those skills in the UAE labour market. The initial
stage of the thesis was to identify the components of the conceptual framework to
answer the research questions, and to assess the progress that the UAE had made
towards knowledge economy status, based on established studies and global
institutional reports. Mixed methodology was employed to answer the research
questions and accomplished by conducting semi-structured interviews with 15 UAE
based business leaders, plus a quantitative survey answered by 138 multi-level
managers and professionals employed in UAE. The qualitative data was analysed
using content analysis, and the survey, was analysed by means of SPSS software. The
major findings are that the skills needed for the UAE knowledge economy differed
somewhat in ranking from those suggested by previous studies and that the current
educational policies, although progress have been made, are not generating sufficient
skills to meet labour market demands. The key limitations of the study included a lack
of agreed definition of the knowledge economy and the challenge of acquiring robust
data from local UAE sources. Several recommendations are made for further study
including extending the education framework to embrace early childhood education
and university research culture. Furthermore, the organization of a platform for
business leaders and education leaders, researchers, policymakers and practitioners to
share knowledge and practice, so that the output of skills levels from the education
sector could be substantially enhanced.
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Keywords
United Arab Emirates (UAE), Education, Higher -- Economic aspects., knowledge economy, business leaders, education leaders