The UAE's acting Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr Abdulrahman Al Awar, told university leaders and students that the country's higher education institutions must move quickly to redesign curricula and teaching methods to keep pace with a rapidly changing job market. He said economies and labour markets are shifting at an unusually fast pace, and that universities cannot afford to adapt at their traditional speed.
Al Awar said closer collaboration between academia and industry is no longer optional. The ministry is rolling out an Outcome-Based Evaluation Framework intended to shift the measure of student success away from raw grades and toward verifiable, workplace-ready skills.
Two scholarship students offered their generation's perspective at the event. Noor Odeh argued that less weight should be placed on metrics such as GPA, with more attention paid to the actual skills students acquire. Jassem Alkhoori noted that artificial intelligence has already taken over simple tasks such as screening academic papers, and called for universities to teach students how to use such tools properly rather than ignoring them.
Saeed Al Nazari, Secretary General of the Great Arab Minds initiative, also attended the discussion. Separately, the Zayed Education Foundation announced a new scholars initiative to support emerging academic talent, part of a wider push to align the UAE's higher education system with the demands of an AI-driven economy.
The remarks reflect a debate playing out at universities worldwide: how to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been fully defined, as generative AI reshapes entry-level work across sectors from finance to law.