São Paulo – Educators in the Arab world should try to reproduce in their countries the teaching model in which courses are adapted to the labour market, used by Estácio University, in Rio de Janeiro. A group of professionals in the area and investors visited the institution in Rio de Janeiro on Monday (4) and saw, in practice, how Estácio takes the truth from the work market and into the classroom. Professionals from countries like Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia heard talks and visited the installations of the Tom Jobim campus.
"There is currently unemployment of graduates in the Middle East, but there are work posts that have not been filled, with the market seeking other competences,” explained the president of Estácio, Paula Caleffi, who met the group. The delegation travelled to Brazil to learn more about how to fill these positions and make the bridge between both worlds.
The region already develops a programme called e4e (Education for Employment) whose objective is to help solve the problem. The project is developed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – which promoted the trip of the Arabs to Brazil – in partnership with the Islamic Development Bank. According to e4e figures, the Arab world has the greatest level of unemployment among youths in the world, around 25% of the population.
Among the actions of this project are the offer of courses to those who are already graduated, to prepare them for the market. The idea, however, is also to include changes in the universities, so that they are more attuned to labour market requirements. "They want to expand this work to universities,” said Caleffi. It is for this reason that the Estácio experience interested them.
To be in line with the labour market, for example, Estácio establishes its curriculum according to information collected and suggestions on its virtual platform, as it has several units throughout the country – and that is also part of its strategy. The organisation also likes having professionals in the market among its teachers, as well as providing counselling to students at the end of the course, regarding how to participate in interviews, how to prepare a CV as well as having an internship agency which always has an average of 30,000 positions available.
According to Caleffi, during the visit to Estácio, the Arabs also showed interest in the quality of online courses offered by the organisation. They showed interest in developing a partnership in the area, said the president. The institution offers distance learning and traditional courses, technological and teaching, as well as others, like latu sensu post graduate programmes. The university has around 279,000 students and units in 36 cities.
The idea of the visit arose after Caleffi participated, in March this year, in the Making Global Connections, promoted by IFC, in Dubai, and her talk attracted the attention of participants. The group had already visited Latin America and decided to visit Brazil to learn about the Estácio proposal. IFC is a branch of the World Bank that is responsible for investment in private sector projects, among them education and health, in countries considered emerging or developing.
*Translated by Mark Ament
