rki.news
Subtitle: Ministry of Education and Higher Education-endorsed project kicks-off
This fall, high school students in Qatar will have a chance to experience real-life job tasks as part of an innovative initiative examining how young people make career decisions. Part of a broader effort to align education with market needs, economists at GU-Q, with the endorsement of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, will be running workshops in high schools across the country to better understand how young people make career and study decisions.
Funded by a Qatar Research, Development and Innovation (QRDI) Council grant, this project will recruit more than 1,500 high schoolers to participate in interactive online workshops where they roleplay performing real-world market tasks. The tasks are not invented for the exercise: they are drawn from a database of more than 17,000 real job postings. Each workshop corresponds to one broad college major category.
In collaboration with their schools, which provide space for workshops, students in grades 9-10 will be surveyed, and then asked to complete tasks across six career categories. For careers in STEM, students will perform data analysis and scientific problem-solving; for health and medicine, tasks include patient communication and health assessments; while education offers lesson design and communication activities. Business and economics tasks include negotiation and financial analysis; arts and humanities career tasks include cultural interpretation and creative production; while social sciences careers include tasks in policy reasoning and behavioral analysis.
A post-workshop survey will gather students’ views on career and educational paths. At the end of the exercise, each participating student will receive a detailed report of their individual findings, and a small cash gift in appreciation for their time.
Participating schools will keep access to the six-workshop platform free of charge after the study ends, and each school receives an anonymized cohort insight report on its students’ preferences, beliefs and performance. Schools interested in taking part in the 2026–2027 rollout can contact the project team at sg1575@georgetown.edu.
About the project
What Do Jobs Really Look Like? is a research project led by Georgetown University in Qatar professor Dr. Santiago García-Couto, that gives secondary students a firsthand, interactive experience of the tasks behind six broad fields of study, and measures how that experience shapes their educational choices, beliefs and preferences. It is funded by the Qatar Research, Development and Innovation Council through the Life-Long Education Call, jointly with Education Above All, endorsed by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and implemented in collaboration with Strategy Hub.
Funder acknowledgement
This project is funded by the Qatar Research, Development and Innovation (QRDI) Council under the Life-Long Education Call issued jointly with Education Above All (Grant # LiLEC 01-0218-250029).
