Titus Filio:

Quality matters more than number and officials of the Ministry of Labour, upbeat about a new massive training programme, are adopting the dictum. The nagging problem – unemployment – has been the cause behind all those training programmes - massive or otherwise undertaken by the authorities. But after all those years, that nagging problem remains to stare down at the face of government officials.

There are still some 20,000 unemployed Bahrainis and the number could even grow within the next few years unless properly addressed. Unless arrested.

 Despite millions of dinars pouring into thousands of trainees over so many years, something really went amiss. Something just didn’t work out as expected.

But training officials this time will not go with numbers alone and training planners and managers have begun adopting new catchwords like “competence,” “effectiveness,” “responsible,” “long-term,” and “feasible.”

It seems everyone is out to undo the mistakes of the past, call it the sins of the past, when training was done for regiments of Bahrainis - the numbers of trainees specifically determined to address the number of jobs that could, or should, be filled up. Many according to training councils only left the jobs in what they called a disturbingly high “turnover” rate.
A half-baked programme indeed has no place when it comes to implementing a policy. Training which deals with people should be done meticulously and systematically

.With the new training programme looming above us, Bahrainisation is being seen from a different perspective. In fact even that ‘B’’ word - Bahrainisation - is hardly heard these days while authorities are talking more about “integration” via drastic labour reforms. Local employment matters but company performance - and in effect business and economic performance - are factors that cannot be left ignored.
On the other hand training alone is not the end-all and the be-all to fight unemployment. Generating jobs surely is its twin.

Manpower-exporting countries (like mine) surely know about this - they’ve done successful training and education but young graduates found there are hardly any jobs left for the taking. In Bahrain, there are jobs for the taking but very few graduates are ready, or qualified to take it.

It could be time for learning and relearning lessons, it could be time for “reinventing” some programmes and we can only hope that the new training programme when it starts will do something more dramatic. A change in vocabulary should be matched with a change in outlook.
Still, the rest of the task can only be made successful with another catchword - “will.” That means the will to do things, the will to make things happen.