The proposed Knowledge Complex, which will be at the heart of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, will offer young Arabs wider access to education and to help reduce the rate of unemployment and illiteracy in the region
A knowledge-based economy and society started on the path to becoming reality. Fifteen initiatives were launched in October by the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation to give educators and students more tools with which to teach and learn.
His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, announced that a Knowledge Complex would be set up offering young Arabs wider access to education and to help reduce the rate of unemployment and illiteracy in the region.
The Knowledge Complex will be at the heart of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, which will work towards redeveloping the knowledge roadmap of the Middle East.
The two-day event brought together prominent Arab thinkers, researchers and academics to formulate strategies to raise the standards of knowledge, research and university education in the region.
The aim of the initiatives is to promote continuous learning, higher education and to generally promote education, as statistics show the current situation needs to be addressed.
The region's high unemployment rate - the highest in the world at 15 per cent - is creating challenges of survival as well as reform and development, says Shaikh
Mohammad.
Illiteracy in the region is limiting growth and advancement and alarmingly, those under the age of 15 have a recorded illiteracy rate of 18 per cent, of which 43 per cent are women.
Over the next decade therefore, an estimated 80 million jobs need to be created.
"Naturally, we are not in the age of miracles. There are no magical solutions or ready recipes. Either we create miracles ourselves, and make solutions with our own hands, or the region will be heading towards millions of frustrated, angry young men and women… and you may imagine the consequences.
"Our only choice, in the governments, the private sector, and the civil community organisations, is to work fast, organise, study, and plan," said Shaikh Mohammad in his address to intellectuals, professors and experts at the Knowledge Conference that took place earlier this year.
"If every one of us carries out his responsibility, in whichever position he may be, and realises his own potentials, whatever they may be, we shall be able to fill the gaps, bypass obstacles, conquer challenges and achieve comprehensive and steady growth," said Shaikh Mohammad.
"The challenges we face in the Arab and Islamic worlds are challenges of survival, not only of reform and development. Our knowledge level will determine, to a large extent, our ability to bypass these challenges," he said.
"Let us take the challenges of unemployment for example, which is about 15 per cent, the highest rate in the world. The challenge facing all of us today is not only finding jobs for the unemployed. It is finding 80 million job opportunities during the next decade."
"The gulf is still too wide between the skills of graduates and qualified workers and the skills needed in the work market. Small and medium-size companies, which form the majority in the private sector in the region, lack the necessary financing for investment in research, development, improving work systems, and modernising tools and equipments.
"These companies have a basic role in realising economic growth and providing new jobs," said Shaikh Mohammad.
Programmes
The programmes include the Knowledge Complex, which will support Arab publishing houses and have a monthly magazine, among other projects.
Other programmes include providing scholarships for young Arab professionals to study for their Masters degree, an online programme for women who have family or practical obligations that do not allow them to continue their higher education, and a refugee loan programme to help refugees in disaster areas, by giving small loans to start small businesses.
