UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) Trade Mission and Seminar
to the Levant – Jordan, Syria and Lebanon

12-16 October 2009

UK Trade & Investment is planning an Education and Skills Trade Mission to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon which will
also target key decision-makers from surrounding markets to maximise the regional impact.

The countries of the Levant region are increasingly identifying the education and skills sector as a priority.
Strategies are being implemented to develop initiatives across all areas of the sector which are driving forward the
need for collaboration with international education institutions and companies who can provide expertise,
specialist services and education-related equipment and products.

The Jordanian Government continues to invest heavily in education reform and developing the sector. The literacy
rate is among the highest in the region and Jordan is known for its highly educated workforce. Significant
initiatives in the sector are underway coupled with several ICT and e-Learning projects that offer opportunities for
UK companies to explore collaborative educational technology projects. Jordan has well developed higher and
further education sectors and impressive private schools which offer additional routes to market for suppliers of
educational products and specialist technical equipment.

The Syrian government has identified education and training as one of the priority areas in the tenth five year plan
(2005-2010), which aims at the transition to a social market economy and has human resources development as an
overreaching objective. Raising the educational standards across all educational levels in Syria is seen as a
strategic tool for achieving this goal. As the Syrian economy continues to develop, areas such as tourism and
financial services will offer UK suppliers and educational institutions the chance to provide know-how, training
and expertise.

Education is accorded a high priority by the Lebanese government (4% of GDP is spent on education and the
literacy rate stands at 88.3%) and there are opportunities for UK companies in many technical and vocational
fields. The Government is overseeing an active programme of investment in schools and tertiary colleges. In 2007
over US$245 million of contracts were awarded to education projects, including the construction of schools and
procurement and installation of laboratory equipment and furniture. English is increasingly more widely spoken,
and the British Council in Lebanon have registered record numbers of people who have enrolled on English
language courses.

This Mission has been arranged in response to a UKTI Education and Skills Scoping Mission to Syria and Jordan in
October 2008, which identified the following key segments of the sector as offering potential opportunities for
collaboration with UK education providers:

• Educational technology/resources (including publishing);
• Corporate and vocational education and training;
• English language training for specialist purposes;

Copies of the education and training scoping report for Jordan and Syria are available upon request. Please
contact Suha Batarseh (suha.batarseh@fco.gov.uk) in Jordan and Maysa Mustafa (maysa.mustafa@fco.gvo.uk)
in Syria.

The Mission programme will coincide with two high profile education and training seminars planned in Amman and
Damascus, which will provide a platform to meet with key-decision makers locally from the private and public
sectors in the education and training field. There will also be a one-day visit to Beirut. We also plan to include
involvement from surrounding regions such as the Palestinian Territory and Northern Iraq.

For a full mission programme and details of how you can register your expression of interest, please click Double sided flier.pdf

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