Dammam, July 5 – Expatriate business people and professionals have come out in support of government’s efforts to train and ensure employment for young Saudis.
Engineer Ed P. Solar, Executive Vice President of SGEi, a telecommunications company, said his firm is already involved in training young Saudis “particularly those who completed their technical studies, not only in the field of telecommunications engineering but also in other areas of engineering and project management.” Mary Jane P. Tupas, Director of Nursing at Mohammed Aldossary Hospital, currently provides the necessary training program for young Saudi nursing trainees in both management and bedside training. “It is high time that we foreign medical workers impart the skills we have.”
Zaree Bassheer, manager of a bolt manufacturing plant in Dammam, emphasizes training for Saudis. “Bolt manufacturing requires skills to operate multi-million riyal machines. I ensure training for young Saudi engineers and technical school graduates at my factory and also overseas.” Montasser A. Al-Rashidy, senior accounts manager, Fikra for Public Relations, said, “It will be a mission in the service of the nation, because it will help to reduce unemployment among the nationals.”
Aijaz Ahmed Khan, projects manager, Zuhier A. Zahran & Company for Trading and Contracting (ZAZ), said, “I see it as a duty to support local talent. It is a way of saying ‘thank you’. I came here after some experience working in India, and have learnt a lot from the latest technologies available in the Kingdom.”
Rafiq Zaman, CEO, HMR Systems, has already trained some university students. He said young Saudis have an interest in IT, but an obstacle is lack of English language skills. “Some of them are good, others not, but on average they are like any other young ones,” he said.
Bisher A. Diab, a gold consultant, who has also served with the World Gold Council, is one of the initiators of the Jeddah Goldsmith Institute to train Saudis.
Engineer Syed Faiz Ahmad, who works for Saudi Oger Ltd, said he was prepared to train young Saudis to learn Autocad drafting to prepare Structural Shop Drawings by using computers. __
–Agencies