Education leaders, policy makers and investors meeting in Doha this week agreed that more versatile skills will be needed for the future job market.
Discussing regional and global education, Sheikha Abdulla Al-Misnad, a board member at Qatar Foundation and former president of Qatar University, said, “We tried everything—big investment, big changes, big reforms—but unfortunately we didn’t achieve the results we hoped for. We need a transformation.”
AlMisnad was speaking at a roundtable discussion during the Qatar Economic Forum, organised by the State of Qatar in cooperation with Bloomberg, which met in Doha from June 20 to 22.
Asmaa Al Fadala, director of research and content development at WISE, a Qatar Foundation education forum, also participated in the roundtable on “Adapting the Education Sector to Changing Global Realities”.
Al Fadala agreed that transformative change was needed. Reform results in a better version of existing systems, she said, but preparing young people for the future requires different systems.
“The convergent crises of our world today are shaping how we teach and what we teach and the skills needed for now and the future,” she said.