A leading educator says more students will be employed straight from school into workplaces.
Besides, Dino Varkey, group CEO of GEMS Education, said that in the next decade, more companies in the UAE will employ students after they graduate from school.
He added, ” The Silicon Valley Companies have been doing this for ages, and now companies in the UAE are also beginning to do it. It is happening on the margins but will become more commonplace in the next ten years. However, with the changing technology, companies will get tired of waiting for a good talent pool; hence, they will engage with K-12 schools much earlier to get fresh graduates and train them”.
Moreover, Dino explained how tech giants in Silicon Valley have been employing students for around 15 years. ” Some top companies like Microsoft, Google, and others have been engaging with and recruiting high school graduates for a long time.”
He said, ” Of course, they continue hiring from leading engineering colleges for the tech part. However, they hire and train young school graduates for other areas.”
Partnering with industry leaders
The group has now developed an entire wing called ‘GEMS for Life’ to ensure their students have the essential skills. Moreover, this wing also times to improve the employability of students.
GEMS Education is now partnering with industry leaders to give their students essential exposure. Besides, Dino said, “Our students co-wrote the paper of Mind the Gap along with KMPG consultants, and that is just an example where our kids are already engaging with the industry.
Schools will do what colleges are doing:
According to Dino, schools are the beneficiaries of rapidly changing technology affecting tertiary education.
He said, “The school will do much of what universities do.” Top-tier national universities will always be in demand, but schools will soon teach students the skills currently taught by tertiary institutes. It is ridiculous that students have to spend 15 years going through their K-12 education”.
He also said that as students absorb knowledge much faster, schools must keep up their game.
He added, ” This means that the depth of what our children should be doing in school will be much greater, and the mastery of what they can do will have to be much quicker.”
