programas de apoyo al empleo

Since 2004 Libyan decision-makers have reintroduced the teaching and learning of foreign languages, mainly English, into the curriculum and it is now being taught from Grade five or „10 years old‟ (NESR, 2006). In so doing the state hopes to be able to increase its revenues

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from foreign investment and to use this as a means to fund programs and projects for Libyan economic development. The Libyan Foreign Investment Broad (LFIB) is one of the key institutions for achieving these goals as set out as early as 1997 in Law No: (5) which stipulated that it aimed for “The transfer of modern technology; develop Libyan human

resources; diversify sources of income; Contribute to the development of national products in order to assist their entry into the global markets”. However, most of those foreign projects

investing in Libya are based in the oil industry. The oil industry in Libya has three forms of businesses: first are Libyan national companies, second are companies shared with foreign investors, third are foreign companies.

According to the National Economic Strategy Report (NESR, 2006,) companies in Libya have experienced that graduates from Intermediate and tertiary education, usually need extensive re-training in order to make them productive as workers. This is now seen as a cost for business that should be borne by the state or private individuals, in keeping with the neo- liberal policies of the new vision strategy. The students graduate with high certificates but at the same time lack professional qualifications and most importantly have poor language skills. Dr. Suliman,48 the director of postgraduate studies, has described that in engineering jobs, for example, where both academic qualifications and English language skills are needed; the lack of English language skills has proven to be a major problem. Thus, he thinks that effective new English language training programs are essential for Libya‟s future. It seems to a great extent that the relationship between foreign investments in Libya, the Libyan graduates‟ job opportunities, the competitiveness of the Libyan job market, and the Libyan government‟s aspiration regarding integration into the global economy, all depend on the skills these graduates must acquire.

According to Yahia and Saleh (2008), the economic sanctions (1993-2003-4) strongly affected both Libyan and non-Libyan employees. According to the report of the UK/Libya: Legislative Framework Committee (LFCR, 2006) once these sanctions were lifted, Libya has sought “to re-position herself as one of the leading African nations and as a gateway to

Africa. Thus, legal reform has become key to creating a stable environment for foreign

119 investment (LFCR, 2006:07)”. This report represents the partnership between the Libyan

general planning council and the law society of England and Wales. In other words, this has brought about considerable foreign investment in the country; especially in the oil industry (NESR, 2006; Otman and Karlberg, 2007: 247). More specifically, Zaptia (2009):

“The Board reported that it had successfully promoted a total of 82 investment projects

across all sectors in Libya between 2003 and 2007, of which 34 projects were under execution in the first half of 2008. However, beyond projects directly promoted by the Board, there are a total of 153 projects in the execution stage totalling Libyan Dinars 2.77 billion. Out of these projects there are 34 tourism projects totalling LD 242 million forecasted to create 10,000 new jobs‖.

Indeed, Zaptia‟s statement emphasises the government‟s enthusiasm for attracting foreign investments for promoting Libyan development. However, it has also highlighted the communication problems that exist between the influx of foreign companies, especially English speaking ones, the Libyan government institutions, companies and people. It is this structural supply-side problem that has hindered the job prospects of Libyan graduates who thus far have been unable to take advantage of emerging job opportunities. An example of that was revealed by the British Council49 who said:

“Libya wants to re-position itself within the world, but it can‘t do that in just Arabic, as

Arabic is not the most widely spoken language, there has to be another language that enables Libya to communicate with the world outside, and English is that. Because if you look at the global market, and all research documentation, and all international journals, they are all produced in English, I am not saying that the idea of choosing the English language is correct, but this is the situation now. Now it is time for Libya to rebuild, or more specifically to re-establish, and to maximise its potential, because there is huge potential here but it cannot be done without widening ELA.”

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Some foreign investors, in order to solve such a problem of skills shortages, have cancelled some of their requirements in terms of job specifications such as requiring the range of an applicants‟ age to be 25-30 year old, by raising it up to 40. The reason for this extension is that younger graduates do not have English language skills, so they need some extra time to have English language training courses, while the 40 year olds come ready to work, rather than costing investors extra time/money for training those. Dr, Habiba has described this situation as follows: it is ―unbelievable that we have graduates in the twenty first century

who still can‘t use the English language, especially with the noticeable increase of foreign investors‘ in Libya‖. Thus, despite the fact that wealth and investment in the country in

general is increasing the quality of ELA lags behind this by some way (Zaptia, 2008; Otman and Karlberg, 2007). Zaptia notes that,

“There has been increased oil production, increased oil income and Libya's general

non-oil income has increased. There are new and increased income flows from investments and portfolios.” He added: “There are huge and increasing annual budgets, Libya's GDP for 2006 was about US$68 billion (PPP) and is estimated at US$ 83 billion plus for 2008. That is a per capita income of over 8,000 for 2006 and estimated at over 12,000 for 2008”.

Already, then, as Libya enters the initial phase of securing enhanced FDI into its economy and the transformation of its socio-economic conditions, the pressure of the MOWS to conform to the standard of global English has become a structural supply-side problem.