Workforce forum aims to eradicate gap between students and job market

SORAN, Kurdistan Region - The worlds of government, academia, and business connected on Sunday at Soran University for the inaugural Workforce Development Forum in Kurdistan Region (WDF1) that wants to bridge the gap between students and the job market. It looks at the problems new graduates face and what needs to be done to create a more active and diverse job market.

“The aim of this forum is to bring together everyone responsible for the workforce from both the private and public sectors, from the high ranking officials, advisors, universities and ministries, so they can discuss at what level our workforce is, and what are its issues,” Dr Sherwan Sharif, the president of Soran University, told Rudaw English.

Sharif said the forum will ask the hard questions of why students in the Kurdistan Region struggle to find their place in the job market and make a positive impact in their chosen sector.

The job market in the Kurdistan Region stagnated following the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014, as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the largest employer in the Region by far, largely suspended all new hires as an austerity measure.

The private sector frequently fails to find the skills it needs in the scores of graduates the Kurdistan Region’s universities produce yearly. The lack of a curriculum that prepares the students for the job market and teaches hands-on skills is one of the reasons for this problem, according to Sharif.

“Studies in our universities in general do not provide our students with the necessary skills to help them open up a place for themselves in the job market,” he said.

Sharif also noted there is a lack of communication between companies and businesses looking to hire and the universities.

This lack of communication and skills gap between the education and private sectors is long-standing, according to a government advisor.

“This has some historical background, from the beginning of the [establishment] of the KRG to 2014, almost every graduate had the chance to be employed in the public sector,” said Dr Amir Abdulrahman Chali, advisor to the KRG’s minister of higher education.

Chali said after 2005 the private sector and the free market grew rapidly, however, the curricula taught at universities remained the same. “So this gap between the private sector and what students study was big. That’s why we see a very dramatic skills gap between the graduates and the needs of the public sector.”

Sharif said that Soran University took a decision to change the direction of its studies to be more job-market oriented.

“We aim to transform the identity of Soran University to an applied sciences and research university, react more to the job market, and direct our research towards what the job market requires,” he said, adding that the university has established communication with local and global organizations to prepare its students for the job hunt.

Between 40,000 and 45,000 students graduate from Kurdistan Region universities per year, according to Chali, but he did not know the percentage of them who are employed upon leaving school.

Kamal Abdulrahman, a fourth-year chemistry student at Soran University, said Kurdistan Region’s business owners should realize the enormous potential of the students.

He told Rudaw’s Mohammed Sheikh Fatih that if the country is provided with enough funding for new factories, he and other Kurdish students can lead them, producing better quality items at lower cost. He called on Kurdish business owners to capitalize on the energy and ideas of the youth.

“I call on all the businessmen… to not send their capital outside of the Kurdistan Region. We are talented youths. The university is obliged to educate young people like us. And we are here, we have our work and research done, we have ideas, come take them from us and fund our projects,” Abdulrahman said.