Higher Education in Kuwait | Australian College of Kuwait

Let me start with the education sector in Kuwait: how is the attitude to higher education in Kuwait different to the GCC countries?

Well, we are not spending as much as the Gulf countries have spent, especially the Emirates and Qatar, but our government is spending enough to have the human capital that they need for the development of the country.

In your own opinion, what should the government’s priorities be for domestic reform in education? They’re not spending as much on education as the other GCC countries – is that an area to be reformed?

As I said, we are spending enough, but what we need is to look very seriously at our school education and this means a lot of reform. This process is underway and in the general strategy of the country, education comes first.

We have a 25 year plan for education, but the execution of the plan is slow. Students should have knowledge of language, whether it is Arabic or English, and mathematics when they graduate. Higher education institutions demand those subjects today. You need to be able to communicate and analyse in order to succeed in life. I think we should concentrate on life skills for the students, especially communication, culture, arts and how to have the right attitude to work as part of a team, as well as being avid readers, and passionate learners.

These are skills that nowadays students need rather than just giving them talk and chalk. They need to learn how to interact, how to learn by themselves rather than just being taught. We have to put a lot of effort and time into bringing them up to speed with higher education. For higher education, we need to be more focused on what is needed for the development of the country. Human capital is necessary to diversify and improve the income of the country.

We have to evolve from only selling oil as a raw material, to becoming able to transform it into products that have added value. The only way to do that is to provide your human capital with specialisations at a higher education level.

So we can conclude that the high school graduates are not prepared to enter the job market. If no reform is made in this area, how do you see the future of education? Could it have disastrous consequences on society itself?

No, the government is very much interested in improving education, but we need to be more focused. High school graduates should be prepared for tertiary education. Higher education needs to be more focused on what is needed for the development of the country.

Now, let’s look closer at the Australian College of Kuwait (ACK). Can you tell us more about the institution? What are the advantages? What is unique when you compare yourself to other institutions of higher learning in Kuwait?

We introduced a foundation study period in order to improve the skills of the high school graduates because we take everybody including those who did not have a chance of getting into institutions of higher education. We want to give everybody a chance. So, we have one and a half years of preparation – that’s three semesters. Some students can come in the first semester, some in the second, some in the third, and some of them are good enough to gain direct entry after taking a test.

What is unique about us is that we have project-based learning. Knowing that the high school graduates love to work with each other, you don’t overwhelm them with theories, you give them some theory and then, they have to work together on projects. We found this motivates students. It also encourages teamwork among them and brings out the leaders. They learn a lot while doing that, so, I think we are on the right track by combining practical work with theory and we are succeeding. Those who are maturing early are really moving fast with us. ACK Students, after getting their diploma – two years of higher education study – are much in demand in the private sector.

Beyond the diploma, we have opened up another challenge for ACK students, which is a Bachelor’s degree in business and a Bachelor degree of technology in Engineering. Those who feel that this challenge is beyond them can get a job based on their diploma and maybe later come back and continue, while those who want to have a Bachelor’s degree right away can continue and take another two years. So, we’re opening the horizon for students by creating a pyramid, as we also want eventually to provide master degrees. This way we give more chances to those with higher educational ambitions.

ACK’s advantage is that a student in other institutions has to stay four years to get a qualification, but with us, especially in engineering and even business, after two years they can obtain a diploma and leave and get a job. They can then return to obtain a Bachelor’s degree if they so wish.

We should also mention that you are one of the institutions in the GCC offering specialised courses in aviation programmes. Can you tell us a bit more about this?

We benefited from an offset program whereby the government requires foreign companies to reinvest in the country 35% of the value of the contract signed with it. In line with this we came to an agreement with Boeing to build our aviation maintenance facility, we also were successful in getting the award for maritime simulation from Lockheed Martin, which we are currently using for training.

As for aviation, we organise two and a half years of study with an Australian partner. Our facility here is number 74 in the world to be internationally accredited by EASA. So, we have a programme that the students follow for two and a half years and when they pass all the exams they have to work for two years or more with an airline on a live plane. Then, it is up to the airline when it feels that they’re good enough to get the license to be able to sign and say this plane can fly.

What are the main short term and long term problems you are facing? Are you fully satisfied with student enrollment? What are the challenges you are facing? Are they financial?

Financing is not the problem. The number of students we have are a sufficient base for us, but of course we would like to increase the variety of courses provided, that way you can increase the number of students and fulfill what the market needs. We have also successfully started corporate training for upper and middle management.

To us, one thing is important: that our graduates find work fulfilling the country’s development needs in terms of human capital.

That calls for more qualified staff, of course. Is it a challenge to find academic staff here?

Well, that’s actually a big challenge, to bring in good people. Unfortunately, not all of them stay for more than three years, so we have high turnover with the teaching staff. It is not as easy as we thought it would be, but we’re coping.

What about your cooperation abroad with other schools? Do you have agreements with Australian colleges?

Yes, we have agreements with Australian colleges and one university. Now, we will be working with another two universities because we would like our students to have an international education. Today, with globalisation, they could go and work wherever they want, instead of just having a Kuwaiti qualification. So, we are opening horizons. We also have two programmes with a university in Canada and now we’re increasing the programmes with them. We want to make sure that learning for young people here is internationally accredited.

What is your ambition for the brand of the university? Would you like to be internationally and locally recognised? You’re certainly a young institution, what would you like to achieve?

My ambition is of course to grow with international accreditation, but I would also like to see us getting into research, which is another branch that we have in the future of diversification. This research would improve the education in the college, as well as serve the community, particularly in the oil sector where research is needed continuously.

What about your graduates? Do they have high success rates of finding a job when they finish at the college? What is the percentage of your graduates who find work within a month?

Most of them get a job within two weeks. Half of our graduates go into the oil sector, especially engineering, because they are trainable. There are three necessary aspects to learning: knowledge, the skill to apply that knowledge and the right attitude and responsibility towards the work. So, to us it is important what our graduates can do, not just what they know. I think this is also unique to our college.

What caught my attention in particular is your project-based learning. Is that a new concept?

Since we started, we have been giving our students simple projects and they work together, while the instructor is more or less a mentor. Some of the students are becoming entrepreneurs. We encourage those who want to have their own business and we will help them as they start to make that project a reality. We already have quite a few students who are running their own business.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are the things that will make Kuwait sustainable for the future, particularly now with Kuwait’s efforts to diversify and the problems with the Kuwaiti government. Don’t you feel that you’re the only one fighting for this – to promote innovation and entrepreneurship?

Well, I can’t speak for the others, but this is what we want the students to do. When they have the skill and the knowledge they can innovate; they cannot innovate just with knowledge, they have to work with it. That’s why we believe that our students could actually venture and have their own business.

Do you feel that Kuwait will be able to develop a leading innovation in the world in certain sectors of the economy?

I don’t know about the financial sector because I’m not a specialist, but I can tell you about the oil sector as it is our main resource. The other resource we are contributing in developing is human capital, so that we will be able to produce value-added products to sell into the market. We believe that we have to have cooperation with international companies in that respect, because they are doing research and you benefit from that research when you have joint ventures or partnerships with these companies, and you also gain access to the market. Oil is still the main source of energy for the world, maybe it’s going to be challenged later, but the petrochemical and refining companieswill continue to grow. So, we have to have the human resources to be able to develop it, run it and benefit the country from it.

I think one more point to add is that those who, after the diploma go out and work, are more mature when they come back to ACK. They know exactly what they need and are ready to get more out of the Bachelor programs. They will have had the chance to work and gain some income before coming back. ACK also opens in the afternoon – we have two shifts – so we provide the option to continue working, and come back in the afternoon to study. We are trying to give everyone a chance.