The company, which is part of Pearson, the world’s largest provider of education services, however cautioned that these institutes are unregulated and the qualifications they offer is not linked to the broader quality standards.
“It is being increasingly admitted that the quality and value of these qualifications is higher than the programmes taught in public institutions. Large multinational corporations in the region may still be able to provide internationally recognised qualifications but it will be harder for smaller organisations to achieve this,” Mark Andrews, Regional Director, Middle East, North Africa, Caribbean for Edexcel, said.
“The efforts of the GCC businesses to take responsibility for training the workforce should be applauded. Even if the focus of many companies is restricted to educating their own, the net impact on the skills pool is undoubtedly positive. However, it appears that many businesses are operating in isolation, not willing to share training content and resources with competitors,” he added.
He said that training holds the key to developing a competitive edge and promoting employee retention, and this is why many businesses started to provide in-house training.
Andrews stressed that more collaboration is needed between businesses training their staff, so that sectors will benefit as a whole.
Edexcel offers academic and professional qualifications and testing to thousands of schools, colleges, employers and other places of learning globally, and has over 4 million learners enrolled on its highly regarded courses in more than 85 countries.
“Such long-term collaborations will ensure that skills gaps will not recur in the future; instead, jobseekers will be highly employable, employers will recruit staff members who are able to immediately perform to a high standard, and local and global economies will continue to develop.”
Andrews said that managers in government and private sectors have a role to play in becoming better educators of their own staff.
“Mentoring is an extremely effective mechanism for employees to develop functional understanding and business socialisation. Engaging managers and leaders in the ongoing education of their own staff is a high-impact, low-cost approach that can be easily adopted in any organisation of any size.”