Doha, Qatar: Qatar Career Development Center (QCDC), founded by Qatar Foundation (QF), announced today the launch of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Career Development during a joint press conference in QF's Education City, with representatives from the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE), EduCluster Finland, and Community College Qatar (CCQ) addressing the media.
Marking a significant step in advancing the professionalization of career guidance and career development services in Qatar, the diploma was developed by QCDC in collaboration with EduCluster Finland, licensed by Qatar's Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE), and will be delivered locally in partnership with Community College Qatar (CCQ). The program aims to build a sustainable national pipeline of specialized practitioners and strengthen the quality, consistency, and measurable impact of career development services across education and workplace settings.
The diploma responds to a growing need for structured, evidence-based career guidance as education and labor market pathways become more complex and as institutions sharpen their focus on readiness, transitions, and lifelong employability skills. Built around applied learning that connects directly to day-to-day practice, the program emphasizes real-world application, reflection, and continuous improvement across settings including schools, higher education, and working life.
Arabic-led delivery also positions the diploma as a region-first milestone for the discipline, positioning it as a localized postgraduate pathway designed around Qatar's professional realities while remaining aligned with internationally informed standards and terminology.
The 12-month diploma carries an overall workload equivalent to around 30 credits and includes approximately 1,500 total learning hours across theory, applied training, individual and group learning activities, and field-based practice. Participants will be able to pursue specialization pathways aligned with their practice context, including K-12, higher education and training, and workplace environments. The first cohort is expected to prepare 20 to 40 specialized national practitioners.
"Career guidance has never been a marginal service in societies determined to develop and elevate their human potential," said Executive Director of QCDC, Saad Abdulla Al Kharji.
"It is a specialist discipline that directly affects education outcomes, workforce readiness, and individual life decisions. This diploma represents a national investment in the quality of career guidance, delivered in Arabic for the first time in Qatar and the region, and grounded in global, evidence-based best practice. It raises professional standards and strengthens practitioners' ability to empower students and jobseekers to make more informed, confident decisions."
Assistant Undersecretary for Higher Education at MoEHE, Dr. Hareb Mohammed Al Jabri said: "This diploma sits at the heart of one of the Ministry's strategic priorities under the Third National Development Strategy; aligning education outcomes with labor market needs. Achieving that goal requires highly capable career guidance practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of both the education ecosystem and the labor market, so students are guided toward pathways that match their abilities and talents. We believe this program will be a major addition, not only to the education system, but also to the labor market."
In turn, President of CCQ, Dr. Khalid Mohamed Al-Horr said: "The launch of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Career Development reflects CCQ's commitment to offering high-quality, practice-based academic programs that develop specialized cadres to support individuals in planning their career pathways and strengthen the alignment between education outcomes and labor market needs, in line with the country's human development priorities."
Coordination Lead of the Academic Advisory Council at EduCluster Finland, Dr. David Marsh said the diploma reflects "what can be achieved when partners unite their efforts and strengths," emphasizing that meaningful innovation in education and training "rarely happens in isolation." He added that "professionalization and common standards make a tangible difference," noting that the program is a step toward strengthening quality and consistency, and shifting from fragmented, reactive models driven by labor market needs to a comprehensive, modern, systems-based approach designed specifically for the Qatari context.
The launch of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Career Development reinforces QCDC's broader mandate to establish an integrative career development ecosystem to deliver coherent, high-impact services. Through this partnership model and the program's practice-based design, the diploma is expected to contribute to more consistent career guidance offer across the country, ensuring long-term workforce readiness in alignment with Qatar's human development priorities.
