Qatar Finance and Business Academy’s (QFBA) Kawader participants have all secured internship positions in a range of financial services institutions in Doha, Dubai and London, it was announced.

In its fourth consecutive year, Kawader’s 2016 academic term witnessed the participation of 21 “outstanding students” who are honing their skills and talents towards supporting the financial and business sector in Qatar.

Partner organisations that hosted Kawader interns include KPMG Qatar, Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar Stock Exchange, QNB Capital, Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority, Qatar Central Bank, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ, Hilton, HSBC, and Qatar Financial Centre.

During the internship programme, the students will complete work experience in a variety of organisational functions including audit, finance, product and market development, investment banking, policy, human resources, compliance, strategic finance, risk management, and credit analysis.

The interns, who come from different academic and professional backgrounds, will each have a custom-made training programme, specially-designed for them by the host organisation, in collaboration with the Kawader project manager from QFBA and the student themselves, “to optimise and maximise” learning opportunity.

QFBA CEO Dr Abdulaziz al-Horr said: “The internship experience plays a critical role in consolidating everything the students have learnt in the classroom and enables them to apply their learning to a real-world professional working context.

“They will be placed in the various departments of top local and global organisations throughout the financial services sector, given real work to complete, and will be evaluated on their performance, work ethic and professional conduct throughout their internships.”

He added: “This will provide them with invaluable work experience, exposure to new, best-in-class work environments, networking opportunities in the sector and, for some candidates, the possibility of an offer of permanent employment upon successful completion of the internship.”

Kawader is a four-month vocational training programme developed by QFBA and the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) Authority and funded by a number of Qatari banks, with the aim of preparing high-caliber recent Qatari graduates and young professionals for a career in financial services.

The programme focuses on training-intensive operations that include both theoretical and practical aspects, and cover all the necessary technical aspects to deal with the evolving market demands, thus providing Qatari economic ventures with qualified professional talents armed with the necessary skills and the latest knowledge of advanced economic practices, in order to immediately engage in the labor market, which is vital to accelerate that rate of economic development in Qatar.

The educational component of the programme takes the students through introductory courses in the key elements of the financial services sector, a qualification from the Institute of Leadership and Management, an international certificate in financial English, and either a professional banking certificate or a certificate in an introduction to international securities and investments.

The Kawader participants will complete the programme on December 22 and will graduate on February 7, 2017. Applications for the next batch of Kawader will open in March 2017. The programme is expected to run in September-December 2017.