Budding engineers encouraged by Dibba Al Hisn Municipality sessions

“Engineers on Track” programme teaches students about the profession

Sharjah, 30 August, 2015: Students in Sharjah had the exciting opportunity to take part in an engineer’s training programme organized by Dibba Al Hisn Municipality. This is the third year in a row that the program has taken place and this year around 30 students aged from 6 to 14 from Dibba Al Hisn and Dibba Al Fujeirah took part. The sessions, called ‘Engineers on Track’, took place between August 16th -27th and are designed to create awareness among students about engineering science principles and to promote skills of creation and innovation that help inspire them  and hopefully entice them to consider working in this field as adults.

H.E. Taleb Abdullah Bin Safar, Director General of Dibba Al Hisn Municipality said, “Organizing  the Engineers on Track programme for the third year comes in line with the vision of the United Arab Emirates to develop and promote children’ talent and to nurture an interest in engineering, which is vital for the future development of the emirate.  We hope that our sessions encourage children to seek a career in engineering in order to get sufficient number of citizens specialized in the sector. This will create a flourishing career move for them and also benefit the emirate and the UAE as a whole.”

The training programme comprised a theoretical part which involved workshops and a practical session where students had the chance of visiting the governmental departments which run engineering projects for Dibba Al Hisn Municipality and learnt about engineering planning techniques. The students also made visits to environmental agencies and projects run by Dibba Al Hisn Municipality such as the abattoir and fruit and vegetable market. They also learnt about modern project management skills used at trading and residential sites as well as about design and construction operations.

Engineer Rajaa Al Naqbi, Head Office of Engineering Department of Dibba Al Hisn Municipality, said, “This year’s programme ran under the new title after it was changed from ‘A Little Engineer’ to ‘Engineers on Track’ to expand participation. We have had a steady and constant interest from children in taking part as well as the support of their parents who are happy to have their children’s time filled by an interesting and educational programme over the summer holiday. The participants this year enjoyed intensive training and gained awareness about engineering principles and much more about the different project implementation stages.”

The students agreed they had enjoyed the sessions and thanked to Al Hisn Municipality and those in charge for the event. They said they gained a great deal of information and enjoyed visiting so many governmental and institutional departments learning engineering expertise as they did so.

Dibba Al Hisn Municipality launched the engineering programme in 2013 in a bid to train children and upgrade their scientific civil engineering skills. Over the past two years the number of participants has increased with the total number of students participating in the programme being 55.