Objetivo clase: Empezar a generar espacios de auto reconocimiento de las fortalezas y debilidades desde lo motriz y emocional, a través de

The Omani mass media industry, as noted above, provides less than 2,000

professional jobs, mainly in the public sector’s television and radio stations and therefore subject to the government’s centralised recruitment process. In common with Oman’s private sector, expatriates effectively operate the industry, serving the largely Omani business owners. However, policymakers saw the private mass media industry as full of

potential for graduates, with greater opportunities for quality work and promotion, both within Oman and in the GCC countries. The participant category of graduates’ parents were evenly divided regarding their children’s employment prospects, noting a lack of planning in graduates’ excessive numbers, debating whether the graduates were employable, or whether the mass communication course was relevant to a career.

Mindful of Omanisation, all private sector employers agreed that they had ‘many’ jobs available for suitable MCD graduates, as Private Sector Employer 1 stated:

Without any doubt, there are opportunities of employment. We employ those well qualified and (who) prove (their willingness) to work.

The SQU faculty, however, disagreed with employers that there were sufficient jobs available for the graduates, as Academic 4 noted:

The private sector (mass media industry) in our country is still new and in its developing stages and I think that it will absorb (more of) our graduates in coming years.

All graduates and undergraduates were adamant that the size of the industry impacted directly on the ability to source mass media positions. As Unemployed Graduate 15 stated:

The private sector . . . is limited. There are only two (major) newspapers, Al-Watan and Al-Shabiba, the jobs these two newspapers offer annually in the labour market are very limited too, and the university graduates almost thirty (people) every year. .. . We notice that these private sector establishments employed a few media graduates this year - for the next two or five years they do not employ anyone and as a result, the numbers of unemployed graduates increase.

Other graduates reported that the graduate specialisations that were expected to be relevant to the industry did not meet job specifications. In particular, as noted, public relations as a discipline is not well recognised in Oman, and jobs in public relations in the hospitality industry refer to customer service. Several graduates noted this, as summarised by Unemployed Graduate 14:

The employers themselves do not know what public relations people do and they do not have clear job specifications. . . . I think almost every company and ministry in the country has a public relations department but the type of work the employees in the Omani labour market do is totally different than what we’ve learned in the university.

These participants therefore viewed job availability as a function of the size of the Omani mass media industry and employers’ evaluation of the job classifications associated with the MCD qualification.

The unfulfilled expectations for a majority of mass communications graduates convey a discontinuity between their acquisition of human capital and their ability to profit from it. As noted in s2.1.1, Bouchard (1998) touched on this point, arguing that human capital relies heavily on future investment and, as it is impossible to predict employers' future needs, the assumption of a simple relationship between education and training and economic development is thus weakened. This situation is further exacerbated by the employers in both sectors, who admitted to (previously) discriminatory practices, but also referred to misaligned curricula and low standards for graduates from MCD that affect their employability.

Issues in graduate employment nominated by the private sector employer category centered, not on the absence of jobs that were the focus of other participant categories, but on MCD graduates’ deficiencies in the job application process, which was contraindicated in their journalistic profession; and that they have general media knowledge and training when specialisation is the key to employment. Other issues (see s2.3, Fergany 2000; Ali 2002) nominated by this category, similar to others, were insufficient English fluency and difficulty in retaining trained graduates who were interested primarily in public sector employment (Al-Maskery 1992, Sajwani 1997, Yacoub 2003), and remained unaware of commercial conditions in private sector media:

Private sector establishments are profit-driven. Generally, the university graduates ask for very high salaries without experience or specialisation. We can employ an expatriate who is a well-known journalist with considerable experience for a lower salary (Private Sector Employer 2).

To summarise, participants attributed MCD graduates’ lack of employability to four main causes: scarcity of media job vacancies implied through private employers’ perception of graduates’ unemployability, graduates’ attitudes inasmuch as they preferred to work in the public sector, and deficiencies in job-seeking skills.

The participants agreed simply on a small media market and the graduates’ preference for the public service. Both these variables are aspects of human capital. At a time three years and more prior to the unemployment issue arising, graduates received public sector work – permanent jobs, automatic promotion and superb working conditions.

This was a direct payoff to human capital acquisition: choosing a career, achieving a qualification, and receiving that career. The government’s assumption regarding human capital bore fruit; the individual was employed; the economy developed. Thus, human capital is an aspect of capital acquisition. The next stage is social capital. Arguably, the university is in the position of initiator to extend offers of communication to potential employers for their students’ work experiences and graduates’ careers. MCD’s focus on social capital should aim to build social and business links through society to avoid the disconnect between the transient expatriates and the citizens of Oman. A stronger

communication platform that could withstand changes of players from both the university and employers, notably private employers, is a step toward future implementation of Omanisation. This is elaborated upon at s6.3.