International Human Resources Development Corporation (IHRDC) is pleased to announce the opening of a regional office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and the appointment of Malachy Mulhall as Regional Manager. “We are delighted to announce the opening of our first office in the Middle East and the appointment of Malachy Mulhall to be our Regional Manager. He was born in Kuwait and has lived much of his life in the region,” said David Donohue, President of IHRDC.

The Dubai office contact information is: mmulhall(at)ihrdc(dot)com, Dubai mobile: +971 50 8584451

Mr. Mulhall is the ideal person for this position. He has over 25 years working in the upstream Oil and Gas industry, 10 years of which were spent in the Middle East working at IHS Inc., a provider of critical information and insight for the energy industry. In addition, he has an excellent track record for developing and implementing strategies across the energy vertical to NOC’s, IOC’s and Government organizations. After graduating from Trinity College Dublin, Malachy spent the next 10 years working with Western Geophysical’s Marine Acquisition and Processing Division in the North Sea and the Middle East.

About IHRDC
IHRDC http://www.ihrdc.com is headquartered in Boston, USA with offices in Amsterdam, Cairo, Dubai, Houston, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Lagos with representative offices in Qatar, Malaysia and India. IHRDC is a privately owned company with three major business units: Instructional Programs, e-Learning Solutions and Competency Management. The Instructional Programs Group offers a portfolio of innovative and highly regarded oil and gas management training programs, on both public and private bases, that incorporate challenging business games to achieve outstanding learning retention. The e-Learning Solutions Group licenses four major petroleum e-Learning series, containing over 1000 courses, to 90 companies with 60,000 users in 164 countries. The Competency Management Group assists companies to plan and build a fully competent workforce through the use of its worldwide network of specialists and its highly regarded CMS Online, a robust, web-based competency management system. IHRDC is the proud recipient of 18 Telley Awards, the 2003 Corporate Award for Excellence in Distance Learning Programming and received “The Petroleum Industry Training Provider of the Year Award” from the GetEnergy organization for both 2010 and 2011.

Source: prweb.com

With a population of 350 million — 60 per cent of which are below 30 and 30 per cent below 15 — a large and growing expatriate population that fuels the demand for private education at par with international academic quality standards, rising income levels and increasing urbaniaation, Al Masah expects the regional education market to be around $75 billion, including $30 billion for primary and secondary education.

The investment team at Al Masah started investing in regional education in 2006. They most notably acquired independent schools in Kuwait and turned them into an integrated holding with common management, marketing and academic quality assurance processes. That holding currently manages six schools that offer English, Pakistani, Indian and Arabic curricula to over 10,000 pupils.

The team intends to replicate this buy and build strategy by establishing a new holding that will invest across the Mena region in a diversified portfolio of educational assets.

These assets will comprise of nurseries, K3 to K12 schools applying diverse curricula, higher education institutions as well as professional and vocational training centres.

In addition to education, the company focuses its direct investments on healthcare as well, including establishing and managing Alchemist Healthcare LLC, which acquired The National Hospital and the New National Medical Center in Abu Dhabi. Al Masah Capital also recently announced its acquisition of Al Musalla Medical Centres in Dubai, which forms the core of its healthcare platform launched early 2011.

Al Masah also manages special funds and a MENA-focused listed equity fund under its Luxembourg-based subsidiary. Al Masah has also established an entity based in the Dubai International Financial Centre that is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority. Al Masah currently manages in excess of $180 million.

Bromsgrove School is an independent public school offering co-educational education to over 1,600 pupils aged two to 18. It is one of England’s oldest and finest institutions. It was first recorded in 1476, and then officially established under King Edward VI in 1553 in Worcestershire, England. In 1869 Bromsgrove was one of the fourteen schools that founded the Headmasters’ Conference, the association of leading day and boarding independent schools in the UK and the Commonwealth. In 2002 the School established Bromsgrove International School in Thailand.

With the support of Dubai Duty Free, DWC faculty member Fahmida Habib organized the tour which was linked to research projects in three college courses.

After months of preparation, the students were able to feel and breathe the financial activities in Singapore by visiting distinguished organizations, where they learnt about financial law, regulations and legislations through a presentation at the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Students also learned about the diverse banking systems through presentations conducted by Standard Chartered Bank, Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation, Islamic Bank of Asia and Emirates NBD. Additionally students had campus tours, formal presentations and interactions with students at the National University of Singapore and Singapore Management University, two of the country’s leading institute of higher education.

To expand the student’s exposure to the culture and life in Singapore, the group also visited Arab Street and Museum, Little India, Sentosa Island, Jurong Bird Park, the Zoo and Night Safari, Singapore Flyer and toured on the famous Duck Tour in the Marina. The United Arab Emirates Embassy in Singapore provided a lot of support with planning for the tour and also hosted the group for a formal luncheon.

On their return to Dubai the students completed their partnership agreement with Dubai Duty Free and ran a half day booth in college cafeteria promoting their tour and DDF and also presented to Mr. Nic Bruwer, Head of HR from DDF, the findings of their research on May 12, 2011.

Dr. Monica Gallant, DWC Chair of the Business Programs said: “The tour to Singapore was an achievement that made the Financial Services students very proud and confident to be able to see and experience a great financial center and to be excellent ambassadors of the UAE”.

DWC student Arwa Yaqoot Juma Harqoos, who participated in the tour, said: “We were blessed to get this chance to experience this life- changing opportunity which injected in us energy, enthusiasm and love of learning. It also highlighted the educational and future career opportunities that exist for financial services students. This IST trip to Singapore was a remarkable achievement indeed.”

Source: HCT

“We commend the efforts made by MSU to establish itself in the Middle East. We now share their priority to further the interests of students as they weigh the options for continuing their education”, comments Dr. Lance de Masi, President of AUD. “We are happy to be able to accommodate their student… our institutions after all share a common goal to create opportunities for students to get a solid international education.”

On the scholarships offered by the American University in Dubai, Dr. Harold Sollenberger, Interim Executive Director, Michigan State University Dubai comments “We are very gratified at the cooperation and reception that our undergraduate students are receiving from our colleagues at other universities in the UAE as they seek to continue their college careers here. We are particularly thankful for the generous offer Dr. de Masi at American University in Dubai has made. AUD is making the transition from MSU Dubai to AUD very attractive and straightforward.”

Students from Michigan State University – Dubai Campus are invited to contact the American University in Dubai Admissions Office for further information on the scholarships and transfer opportunities on the following number +971 4 399 9000 or by email to admissions@aud.edu.

Source: aud.edu

“Raising the compulsory education age is one of the key component of the strategy that will help minimise the dropout rate,” she told the daily. Dubai’s Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) placed the dropout rate in the emirate at 22% among boys and 14% among girls.

Source: AMEinfo

Dubai Academic City (DAC) was founded as part of a long-term economic strategy to develop the region’s talent and to accelerate its move into a knowledge economy:  It is expected to cover 129 million sq ft: the development is scheduled to be completed by 2012.  This knowledge community was established after the successful development of Knowledge Village (DKV / KV) near Dubai Internet City.

It is the world’s only Free Zone dedicated to higher education and its intention is to be a base for schools, colleges and universities (Knowledge Village will house training institutes and educational service organizations).

Located in the heart of DAC, Dubai International Academic City (DIAC) is the  regional base for premier international higher education institutions, and is the world’s first dedicated tertiary cluster development. The DIAC campus provides an intellectually inspiring environment for students and faculty:

There are currently over 30 academic institutions, 20 of them being international universities of higher learning from diverse regions including Australia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Belgium, UK and Ireland operating out of DIAC, and catering to over 8,000 students. These include The University of Wollongong in Dubai, from Australia, Middlesex University Dubai Campus, from UK and S.P Jain centre of Management Dubai, from India among others.

You can visit all the Academic Institutions here.

Benefits for DIAC partners include 100% foreign ownership, 100% tax free, 100% repatriation of profits.

Executive Director of DIAC is Dr Ayoub Kazim (and also of Knowledge Village, KV) expects that by 2015, to have almost 40,000 students attending 40 different institutes.

About the Programs:

They range in duration from one year to four years. Major academic programs include engineering, computer science, fashion and design, biotechnology, environmental studies, quality management and business management programs.

For more information on Dubai International Academy, visit their Website here