UAE youth need to be encouraged into aerospace sector

ABU DHABI // The UAE will have a better chance of growing its aerospace sector if it invests in its education and military sectors, international experts said on Wednesday.

They said Emirati youth need to be made aware of all the opportunities available in the industry for the country to be able to expand its workforce.

“The direction of aerospace is dependent on the investment you make in the workforce,” said Col John Jones, an adviser at the US army. “You have to make an investment in the people and make sure they’re aware of opportunities. You have to make sure that the opportunities to get education in science, technology, engineering and maths are available.”

With the space sector relatively new in the UAE, the country will need to create alliances with more experienced countries.

“We want to support Emiratisation but we need to work closely with the Ministry of Education to make sure people are trained in cyber security and aerospace,” Col Jones said at the second day of the MilSatCom conference in Abu Dhabi.

“It’s a movement away from the science and technology fields in the curriculums now because people have been diverted to the quick moneymaking majors, and science, technology, engineering and maths are hard. They take effort, time and study.”

He said there was a lack of effort to acquire one of these majors with more students focusing on simply getting a degree.

“But it’ll take these kinds of people to have a future in aerospace so developing a workforce is an investment by the entire community,” Col Jones said.

“Alliances with other countries, investment by the military and the Ministry of Education are needed to make sure the workforce is up to par to support the future of aerospace.”

A recent study, he said, revealed that more than 61 per cent of young Emiratis were motivated by helping their country.

“So understanding young people and knowing what motivates them is important,” he said. “As we get older, we lose sight of that. The aerospace industry is going to keep climbing and if we don’t develop young minds into knowing the importance of being in this field, it’s going to degrade that process.”

Paul Andrus, an instructor at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado, said the government itself was a point for workforce development as it sets policies for education.

“The military is a very important point surrounding the workforce too,” he said, and too many students “wonder what and how they should study and what their place in the government or military will be. They don’t have a vision and that can’t be allowed to happen, so the industry and government should engage with students and academic centres because these students want to know what the future holds for them”.

Squadron Leader Ralph Dinsley, from the UK’s Royal Air Force, said space knowledge expertise and talent were a scarce global resource. “There need to be projects and programmes focusing on education,” he said. “The UAE is on the right track with the formation of the space agency.”

cmalek@thenational.ae