New all against wasted proliferation of university graduates and for filling the employment gap

The President of the Beirut Engineering Association (BEA), Khaled Chehab, warned against the useless number of graduate engineers who are flooding the local and international markets, underlying the significance of specialization in disciplines that represent an added value to those markets. Chehab, who was speaking yesterday at the American University of Beirut upon an invitation by students of the AUB Faculty of Agriculture, said “we lack the skills of professionals that fine-tune the execution of engineering projects.” He disclosed that similar to global orders of engineers, the BEA is seriously studying putting into use the test of merit for its membership as a routine to pinpoint the qualified and competent engineers. This decision, Chehab said, was taken after deliberation with deans of the schools of engineering in Lebanon and with academic and professional experts, and after the number of members in Beirut and Tripoli reached a peak of 60 thousand. He said it is time to curb the overwhelming number of students graduating from colleges that offer replicas of programs of foreign institutes. Finally, Chehab advised students to develop their knowledge and partake in seminars and training workshops in the various specialties. He asked them to visit the BEA website regularly for the latest announcements. (Al Mustaqbal, April 26, 2016)