The Peninsula Newspaper
Wednesday, 07 March 2012 10:21
“Someone called me complaining and saying all the friends congratulated me, except you. I excused you when I came to know that you were abroad.” “Anyway, congratulations my dear friend, but what is the reason of happiness?” I asked him. “Well, I’ve got a PhD!” “True, but I know that you do not even have a masters degree!”. He replied thus: “In fact, I got a master’s degree before that by equating my experiences and the duration of my work in the State via my curriculum vitae which I sent to foreign university website. I got PhD from an Arab university after writing a thesis”. “But, is it a recognized university and are your certificates approved by the educational institutions in the country?”. “My dear, I neither care about the recognition nor do I seek to obtain it. I just wanted my name to be preceded with ‘Dr’ for prestige purposes!”.
This kind of conversation has become common, not only in our society, but in some Gulf and Arab countries and even on world level. But such people must be legally dealt with and exposed by the media so as to be an example for others.
But here in our country they are honoured by our mass media and congratulated in colour pages in the newspapers, magazines, forums and social networking websites with no shame and shyness. The US based newspaper (Spokesman Review) published a list of fake degrees of ten thousand peoples, most of whom were Americans ,who obtained pr-paid Phd degrees. The newspaper explained that they spent (7.3) million dollars to obtain the fake degrees from one of Washington-based special centers. The US Justice Department put them in the black list and even legally pursued them. The report said that the list includes more than 180 people from the GCC countries, most of them from Saudi Arabia (68) and the Emirates, including 16 from Kuwait, 12 from Bahrain and four from Qatar, according to the full list published by the newspaper showing the name of the person, his country and the type of certificate obtained. The report said that the value of the certificate ranged between hundreds and thousands of dollars according to their type, whether they attributed to the school or university. The paper indicated that the price of a doctorate degree, for example, amounted to 8,000.
The US judicial authorities sentenced the head of the “organization” called “Diploma Mail” for three years in jail for selling fake certificates to thousands of people from 131 countries. The organization works in the field of granting the “honorary” certificates based on the experience rather than the academic study. Furthermore, the organization, in cooperation with the staff of US universities and schools obtained approved fake certificates in order to give them to thousands of people around the world including a large number in the Arab world.
At the same time, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education is watching this mockery instead of taking a deterrent legal action or warn against such unethical practices which began to stretch and grow in the society like the ball of snow.
This issue raised a lot of controversy among our brothers in the neighbouring Gulf States. Some Advisory Council members called to adopt a law to penalize people who hold fake certificates and prohibit their recruitment in the public or private sector. They also asked to protect the individuals and society interests from the harmful impact of these forged certificates!
Unfortunately, among those holders of forged PhD degrees there are some members of the Advisory Council, general managers, members of municipal councils, directors of culture and arts associations, heads of literary clubs, managers of banks, university professors and others. They are often placed in both private and charitable sectors where the work does not require the equivalence of certificates. The former Saudi Minister of Education attacked the fake PhD degree holders describing them as unscrupulous people. He wondered how a person allows himself to be called a higher degree holder from a remote university without leaving the country for one day or going for a few days and returning with a fake degree. He noted that academic corruption is one of the most heinous acts of the moral deviation that should be addressed.
The former Minister of Education of Saudi Arabia gave an example of a doctorate thesis in Arabic granted to its holder from an American university based in (London). The name of (Condoleezza Rice) was among the thesis signatories on the first page. But it was not mentioned if that was the name of the then US Secretary of State or the name of someone else. When the PhD holder was asked about the name and whether she was really the then Secretary of State, he replied” yes”. He was asked: Does Condoleezza Rice read and write the Arabic language and eligible to be the supervisors of doctoral thesis? He answered that she trusted one of the supervisors who is a professor of Arabic who works in one of our universities. In such cases the two parties are blamed, first: our university professor who signs as a witness of granting this degree issued from a fake university. The second is the person who alleged that he received this academic degree and is proud of it.
The forged certificates as defined by Dr Mowaffaq Ruwaili, are the certificates issued from a fake university and are not recognized by the sovereign authority in the country which is the Ministry of Higher Education. Dr. Mowaffaq Ruwaili called to adopt a system to curb the spread of these certificates in the light of lack of approved document protecting the homeland and citizens from the threat of fake certificates. The country is protected by two ways: First: protection from sources of danger of the fake universities holders seeking money only under an academic coverage. Second: protection from the risks that occur while the forged certificates holders are running and managing these institutions with those academic qualifications which are not recognized locally or globally.
The protection of the citizen has many forms, including the protection of citizen’s funds from being robbed by fake or “cartoon” certificate which has no «added value», protection of the citizen from being physically or morally exploited by such forged certificates holders , protection of the citizen in the labor market, which provides equal career opportunities for those who have a recognized university degree, whether international or local and the holder of certificate issued from the fake university.
What the Ministry of education and higher education in Qatar should do to meet this growing and ignored issue in their programs and agendas, and how the minister will seriously deal with this black file, or does he believe that the issue is unrelated to him at all.
How many peoples who have fake certificates obtained from the Gulf universities o including Bahrain, Kuwait Egypt, Jordan and Morocco as well as Philippines, Thailand, China and some European countries, the United States, South America and African countries and Scandinavia. The major problem is that who will protect the country from the cancer of the fake certificates widely spread in the society while some peoples are watching it and others are cheering and clapping!.
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