According to recent reports, Emiratis will hold up to 60 per cent of jobs available in nuclear energy power plants.

Up till now, 40 Emirati students have won scholarships to study nuclear energy via a $20.4 billion nuclear power contract signed between the UAE and South Korea to create partnerships in research, education and vocational training in nuclear energy.

The capital will witness construction of four power plants, one of which will be built by 2017.

Fahd Al Qahtani, Media Relations Manager at the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) said, “All four power plants will be ready by 2020, the exact location of the plants remains unknown. The project is vital to the UAE, which is why we are prioritizing the development and training of Emirati talent to ensure they lead the UAE civil nuclear energy programme.”

It should be noted that seven students out of the forty will gain their nuclear energy bachelors degrees at Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR).

Masters degree in nuclear energy would be completed by five students who are originally engineers. The remaining will finish their bachelor degrees in France, the US and UK.

A multilateral nuclear education agreement was signed yesterday by Khalifa University (KU), the Institute of Applied Technology (IAT), and the ENEC at a meeting with South Korea.

A student exchange programme to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and lecturers from KAIST coming to the UAE and establishing a research development alliance, are all included under the agreement.

Furthermore, the agreement also aims at forming new labs and offer practical training to students in the fields of nuclear engineering, information technology, telecommunications, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, nanotechnology, robotics and energy.

The agreement also seeks to offer exchange in nuclear safety expertise with the Korean Institute for Nuclear Safety.

Dr. Aref Sultan Al Hammadi, interim president of KUSTAR told, “Our partnership with the Korean institutions will result in a surge of new programmes to offer our students, as well as strengthen our capability to drive innovative academic, research and foster educational excellence in the field of engineering across the region.”