National Qualifications Authority UAE

The establishment of the National Qualifications Authority (NQA) is a key initiative to cope with the dramatic changes UAE is witnessing at all levels, including changes within the economic and education and training sectors. UAE always considered as the best placed to initiate appropriate strategies that can achieve its vision of socio-economic development, coincide with the emerging needs for the technology-based economy, and be in a better position to move towards the knowledge-based economy that the world has been going through since the 1990’s of the last century. These changes, further, have necessitated re-addressing the roles played by the education and training bodies and stimulated the development of huma​n capital skills.

As part of the world-economic framework, the UAE economy, and its prosperity, faces different challenges imposed by the ever-changing work environment and the continuous need for a highly skilled and qualified w​orkforces, these challenges are as follows:

• Increasing globalization of economies and technologies.
• Rapid technological advances.
• Increasing globalization of economies and technologies.
• Changing population demographic profile, enhancing workforce productivity, and attracting highly-skilled workforce for some industrial sectors.
• Increasing mobility of labour.
• Rapid increase of UAE productivity as a result of multi-revenue policy followed by the country.
• The need to establish an entity responsible for coordinating between the labor market and education training providers, leading to a better
• implementation of the Emiratization plans and to filling the gap between the education and training outcomes and the labor market needs.
• The need to develop a national strategy responsible for qualifying a UAE workforce that can ably meet the needs of different industry sector.
• The need to develop a rigid and quality-assured system for the licensure and accreditation of commercial education and training providers.
• The need to move from a supply-driven market to a demand-driven one.
• The need to establish a national qualification database that can assist decision makers adopt policies and strategies relevant to the UAE labour market future trends.
• The need to involve industry in the development of education and training curricula and programs.
• The need to establish a national body responsible for the development of national occupational skills standards, the base for the development of vocational education and training qualifications. ​

Vision is to have distinct national qualifications that enhance economic and social development. Mission is to have a high-quality national qualifications system that meets the requirements of social and economic development by reinforcing the links between learning outcomes and the labour market; developing RPL policies; licensing vocational education and training programs and institutions and standards for the accreditation of qualifications; facilitating the transfer of individuals between the general, higher and vocational education and training pathways; and supporting the concept of lifelong learning through the recognition of learning outcomes of each individual in the society.

Inspired by the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, the UAE GHQ and the Institute of Applied Technology (IAT) signed in February 2006 an MOU to establish the “Qualifications Framework Project”. This very initiative aimed to develop and maintain a qualifications system that values every individual’s learning and optimizes access, transfer, progression and recognition of informal and non-formal learning, contributing to the UAE social and economic development, and leading to a skilled and knowledgeable workforce for a globally competitive.

Following a perseverant work and a four-year on-going consultation at the national and international levels, and having examined all the relevant international practices, President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued On 23 August 2010 Federal Decree No. 1 ‘Establish and Maintain the National Qualifications Authority’. The role of the National Qualifications Authority (NQA) is to coordinate with related entities and relevant agencies the establishment and implementation of an internationally recognized qualifications system for the UAE, which includes a national qualifications framework and all its associated policies and procedures.