The head of the Kuwait Engineers Society, Eng. Faisal Al-Atl, warned against finding jobs for engineering graduates, explaining that the number of graduates is 3,000 annually and the actual need for the government and private labor market does not exceed 1,000.
Al-Atl told Al-Rai daily that the KES has prepared a list of 13,000 expatriate engineers who have not passed the professional tests carried out by the society in cooperation with the Kuwait University and also “we did not find a clear response in this regard.”
He pointed out that the outburst in announcing new public benefit associations is an attempt to weaken the power of civil society in combating the forces of corruption, indicating that the number of public benefit associations in 2004 does not exceed 25 which have established since the 1960s and their objectives are clear and applied to reality. Here are the details of the conversation:
He added, because there is no coordination between education of all kinds and the need of the labor market, and since the annual turnout of engineers far outpace the need of the labor market, there is a need for specialized engineers in the oil sector, such as machinery and drilling engineers, but no one studies these disciplines, while the focus is on petroleum engineering in general, so there is an imbalance in the labor market and its needs in which the graduate will not find an opportunity to work in the future with his certificate.
He went on to say that the KES has submitted a proposal and called on the Public Authority for Manpower to amend the Kuwaitization law in the private sector so that the rate is not less than 30 percent for Kuwaitis.
He added, until 2004, the number of public benefit associations was approximately 25, and they have been operating since the 1960s, according to goals and plans to develop and serve their members and society in general.
However, after this date, the number exceeded 100 associations with the same goals and technical specializations. It seems that some of these associations have a political goal that may weaken the strength of the civil society in confronting corruption, dispersing its ideas, and interfering in its work, and public benefit associations, especially professional associations, since their inception, serving the country and the citizen through declared goals and activities for all.
Meanwhile, he said according to published figures, the number of Kuwaiti engineers working in the private sector does not exceed 2,000, unlike oil engineers and the government sector.
He added, the KES supports the employment of Kuwaiti engineers, and the Kuwaitization of the engineering sector, and “this is our major demand and in all our meetings with officials, we call for opening new work horizons and stopping the queue system for Kuwaiti engineers in the government sector, and we have initiated the rehabilitation of hundreds of engineers to replace them in the private sector as well.
“In this regards, we presented a project to replace the Kuwaiti engineers to work in the private sector by regulating the engineering labor market in Kuwait under the title ‘Engineers are future leaders’ which has so far received a lukewarm response by assigning the association the task of accrediting non-Kuwaiti engineers,” he said.
He went on to say, that everyone who submits an application for membership and fulfills the conditions gets it, and we have members and colleagues from the bedoun category and they enjoy all the services provided by the society except they don’t have the voting right in the elections for the society’s board members.
Al-Atl confirmed that the Society of Engineers is the oldest public benefit society in Kuwait, as it was established in 1962, with the beginning of the urban and economic renaissance and shortly after Kuwait’s independence, and its objectives focused on the following:
— Contributing to the industrial and urban renaissance in the country.
— Preserving the rights and legitimate professional interests of engineers.
— Organizing the rules for practicing the profession and raising their standards.
— Work on consolidating ties and documenting scientific and technical cooperation between engineers in Kuwait and their colleagues in Arab and foreign countries.
— Encouraging the conduct of engineering research and the development of Arab engineering specifications in partnership with the concerned institutions and bodies.
— Seek to resolve disputes that occur between engineers or between them and their clients in connection with engineering work.
— Encouraging engineering vocational training in Kuwait by various available means.
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