Crime pays for new university students in Sharjah

Farid Ohan talks to the first class of social work students at Sharjah Women's College.

SHARJAH // The academic year is starting with new university programmes in criminology, social work and business designed to meet the needs of the job market and the nation.

The University of Sharjah has expanded its master's in applied sociology to include a stream in criminal justice and criminology.

The first such programme in the country, its purpose is to serve people working in the field, from the Ministry of Interior and police to the courts. In the first year of the two-year programme, students take core courses including sociological theory and applied social statistics. Until now, second-year students have gone on to specialise in social work but because of an increasing gap in the field, criminology has been introduced.

Prof Ahmad Alomosh, the dean of the college of arts, humanities and social sciences, said: "There is a demand for these experts in both governmental and non-governmental entities. We are tapping into areas of society that have until now been neglected." Huda Atef, 24, from Yemen, is one of the first students on the programme. She studied for her undergraduate degree in sociology at the university and had hands-on experience in Dubai's women's prison, where she trained for six weeks in her final year.

She recently returned from a series of workshops in the US. "The criminal justice system there is much more established," she said. "Here it's a new field with areas needing a lot more research such as domestic violence. Nobody talks about it, but it's an area that needs to be addressed." At Sharjah Women's College, part of the Higher Colleges of Technology, the first students started work on the bachelor's programme in social work. During the four years, they will complete 1,000 hours in workplaces from government to private organisations including Sharjah Humanitarian City and the Sharjah Supreme Council for Family Affairs.

The Ministry of Social Affairs identified a need for social workers and approached the college to fill it. Margaret Wood, who is teaching in the programme, said: "The UAE has in the past had social workers who aren't up to the skill level required. There is a great need for experts and the UAE is at the point of identifying the standards that are required because there is a move towards licensing the profession."

The college's director, Farid Ohan, said: "It's part of a new emphasis on social infrastructure. All this emphasis on IT and engineering is very important but there are other needs which must be addressed in the UAE. If we didn't think these students would get jobs when they graduated, we simply wouldn't offer these programmes." Set notions about the profession have made recruitment challenging, he said, but those on the programme are committed to contributing to social change.

"We've had to work with schools, students, parents and counsellors to educate them that there are all kinds of jobs other than engineering that need to be attended to by nationals," he said. The University of Dubai has just launched its master's in business administration with an opening cohort of 40 students who are mainly Emirati and all of whom have full time jobs. In a market with plenty of MBA programmes, the university says there is still a need to create an increasingly skilled workforce.

"The skill expectations of companies have gone up now," said Ananth Rao, the dean of the college of business administration at the university. "Where companies used to want BBA [bachelor of business administration] students, now they want MBAs, for the higher positions, so we have to keep up with demand. "Our BBA alumni have also been asking us when we were going to launch the MBA. It was the demand from them which prompted us to launch."

The 15-month MBA focuses on simulation exercises and case studies prepared at home to reduce the amount of classroom hours. And though it is only in the planning process, Ajman University is now working on launching a bachelor's programme in Islamic Banking. It would be the first undergraduate programme in the country to be accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Thamer Saeed Salman, Ajman University's vice president, administrative and financial affairs, said: "Over the last 10 years, the Islamic banking sector has expanded hugely and there is a need to provide a bridge between conventional banking and Islamic banking."

'UAE needs local social workers'

SHARJAH // Amani al Saeed, 20, and Mosa al Tuniji, 19, are two of the first cohort of social workers at the Sharjah Women's College.

The girls, both from Sharjah, are in a class of 20, that includes girls from as far as Ajman and Umm al Qaiwain.

Ms al Saeed said she had always wanted to do something special, something different. "I saw people suffer, my friends, my family, people I know," she said.

"I saw that they needed help and because of that, I wanted to be a social worker. People were going through divorce, children didn't understand their parents, parents didn't understand their children."

Crime is her main interest, however. "I want to go to prisons and ask people why they commit crimes, to understand what they are missing in their life."

Ms al Tuniji has been a student counsellor since she was about 10. People have always told her she would make a wonderful social worker, able to listen to people's problems and offer good advice.

"The UAE needs local people to be social workers, it's easier to help people Emirati to Emirati," she said. "They feel I can help them because I'm from the same cultural background and they also want to help me."

She said she has seen changes over the past year, with social problems she never imagined in her own country.

"In the last year we've had the most problems. When a group of teenagers killed a small boy, we asked how this happened in our country," she said.