The career guidance center at Damascus University opened on March 4th, and it is a center special for training that will provide extension services and career guidance for students to get a good job, in cooperation between the UNDP and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor. The center aims to build the capacity of university students and develop their personal skills in order to integrate them into the job market and help them to identify their aptitudes, propensities, and abilities for the selection of an appropriate career.
Just as the center will help students develop their skills in writing a CV, conducting an interview and searching for work as well as introducing them to internet websites that provide guidance and can provide useful information for the CV and the interview.
Dr. Wael Mualla, President of Damascus University, said at the opening ceremony that the center is the first of its kind in Syrian universities and aims to combat unemployment among university graduates and facilitate the suitability between the competencies of the graduates and the requirements of the job market in both the private and public sectors. He then added that universities in Syria are facing major challenges including the fitting its graduates into the job market through its curriculum. So it has become necessary for the universities to make decisions for career planning, guiding them to the entrepreneurial skills that one must have. And this requires drawing on the experience of international universities in this field, according to the President, stressing that the success of the center depends on the continued cooperation between the partners in this project, from whom it has received tremendous support.
Ismail Wald Sheikh Ahmad, the resident representative from UNDP, explained that the center aims to increase student skills and build their personal and scholarly skills, especially among the youth to help them join the market. He pointed out that the opening of this center is part of a package of initiatives supported by the UNDP and the Syrian government in their efforts to combat unemployment.
Mr. Mujahid Abdullah, the chief operating officer at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, said that unemployment hampers development and modernization and prevents them when it increases. Hence, promoting the concept of training and creating centers that specialize in it and guide job seekers to available job opportunities is important according to the officer, just as he stressed the importance of cooperation between the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor and Damascus University in this area.
Then Mr. Muhammad Haikel, the representative of the Special Economic Zones Forum that supports the creation of the center, noted that the center is a model for the idea of strengthening partnerships between different sectors of society and is evidence of the success of the idea of partnership between the job sector and education. He also emphasized the continuation of support from the forum for the center in the next stage.
Also, the director of the career guidance center, Dr. Abdel Salam Kayal, presented the goals of the center, its activities, and the steps taken during the previous period in addition to recommendations for the next stage.
