Some 8,000 prisoners have been qualified to join the labor market as soon as they are released, said Ahmad Khalifah, director general of the Training Department at the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training in Dammam on Monday. He said the organization is coordinating with several government agencies to find jobs for former inmates who graduated in technical and vocational institutes. Six Saudis who were released are waiting to be employed. More than 3,000 other inmates have been admitted to vocational institutes on a remote learning program. The Directorate General of Correctional Institutions had enlisted 170 trainers to train the inmates. The organization will pick up part of the cost of training, while the directorate pays inmates' allowances. Khalifah added that the Centennial Fund granted a loan to one of the graduates to start a project. Coordination is also under way with the Center for Small and Medium Scale Establishments at various chambers of commerce to provide support to projects for trained former inmates. Khalifah said there are 36 institutes for training inmates in more than 13 specialties needed in the job market. He added that the vocational training cost for each individual borne by the organization ranges between SR7,000 and SR10,000 per year. Meanwhile, the organization is preparing to establish four tourism and hotel colleges in Riyadh, Madina, Taif and Hofuf, which are expected to cost some SR400 million. According to the Director of the Public Relations and Media at the corporation, Ayed Al-Qahtani, establishing these colleges actually starts in six months, and they will be up and running in 5 years. The London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat quoted him as saying that each college will train 2,000 to 3,000 students, adding that only men will be admitted as the “tourist and hotel sector currently does not need women.” Qahtani said that trainers from the Kingdom and abroad will be recruited for the teaching staff of these colleges – which grant Diploma certificates – as private hotels are to be constructed near them to facilitate on-the-job training. __
