DUBAI KNOWLEDGE VILLAGE RECEIVES HIGH PROFILE DELEGATION FROM MALTA

Malta delegation in Dubai

Dubai, UAE: Dubai Knowledge Village, part of TECOM Investments, welcomed a high profile delegation from Malta, led by the Maltese Minister for Education and Employment, Hon. Evarist Bartolo. The delegation was received by Dr. Ayoub Kazim, Managing Director of Dubai Knowledge Village (DKV) and Dubai International Academic City (DIAC).

The visit was focused on exchanging expertise and sharing best practices on setting up and running knowledge hubs in the UAE and Malta, and to review the services and facilities offered by DIAC and DKV to its 500-plus business partners covering the training and HRM as well as higher education sectors.

The delegation was composed of high ranking officials from a number of leading organisations within Malta’s education and training industry, including University of Malta; English for Foreign Language Monitoring Board; and Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology. They discussed areas of potential collaboration with educational institutions in the UAE, and received an overview of the journey of DKV and DIAC since their initial inception in 2003 till our current day, highlighting their growth and success over the years. Expertise and key learnings were shared, emphasizing the significance of the globalization of higher education. In addition, the delegation was briefed on how DIAC and DKV are offering a unique opportunity for students, being home to 21 of the UAE’s 37 international Branch Campuses from 10 countries including leading education hubs like UK, USA and India.

The role of education in determining the students’ potential in the job market was among the key points that were touched upon during the visit, highlighting the key issues such as employability skills gap between the graduate and the industry. The group then discussed how Dubai is leading initiatives to identify industry requirements and help educational institutes meet those demands. On the forefront of those initiatives was the Workforce Planning study that DIAC launched last year in collaboration with Deloitte. The study identified industry verticals where Dubai has developed a strong niche and emerged as potentially high on future employment demand, including healthcare, hospitality and tourism, Islamic finance and energy.

Following the discussion, Maltese Minister of Education and Employment, Hon. Evarist Bartolo commented on the benefits of a potential collaboration with DKV: “In visiting Dubai, it is clear that the Emirate, and indeed the UAE, is focused on developing the vision of a knowledge based economy. DKV and DIAC are contributing significantly to this vision by bringing together leading education institutions from across the world. We are impressed by the discussions we had, and we look forward to strengthening and enhancing our relationship with DIAC and DKV, Dubai, and the UAE as a whole.”

Dr. Ayoub Kazim commented: “We are delighted to have hosted this important Maltese delegation and look forward to even closer collaboration in the future. Partnerships such as this enable us to continue our ambition of attracting world- leading education institutions to Dubai, which underpins the development of a truly knowledge-based economy.”

Dubai Knowledge Village was originally conceived in 2003 to cater to the training and development needs of growing free zone industries in the Middle East. Over the past 11 years it has expanded its offering to cover all human resource management functions such as HR consultancy, executive search and training and development. The business park remains the world’s only free zone dedicated to human resource management.

Dubai International Academic City provides more than 400 certificate, diploma, undergraduate, post graduate and PHD programmes to over 20,000 students of 125 nationalities. Since its inception in 2007, almost 15,000 students have graduated from DIAC based universities. These graduates go on to work both in the region and internationally.