Although it is common knowledge that thousands of expatriates have gotten jobs in the private sector on the strength of fake educational certificates, these certificates are not subjected to their authenticity by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) or any government authority.

In the case of private companies, some of the employees hold higher positions based on fake degrees, the Ministry of Higher Education does not have any role to prove the correctness of their data, unless the company makes a formal request to verify the authenticity of these certificates, unlike the government sector, whether the university is one of the institutes accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education in Kuwait.

A source at the Ministry of Higher Education told the daily “the private sector is not subject to the supervision of the ministry since it takes a lot of time.” The source pointed out the “employees in the state ministries and government institutions are obliged to endorse their certificates because the salaries and allowances are paid by the government but this is not the case with the private sector where the salaries of its employees are paid by the companies and has nothing to do with the government.”

However, the source stressed “if the company asks the government to endorse the certificate of the expatriate, we do so, but most companies do not ask us.” “Some Kuwaitis have got certificates from universities that are not accredited and at the same time an expatriate also has got the certificate from the same university, but in the case of Kuwaiti working for the government the certificate has to be endorsed while an expatriate working for the private company does not do the same because the company does not ask the government for endorsement,” said the source.

In the meantime, the Al- Qabas daily quoting Minister of State for Economic Affairs Mariam Al-Aqeel said that there is no joint cooperation so far between the Public Authority of Manpower and the Ministry of Higher Education to endorse the certificates of expatriates working in the private sector.

In any case, Al-Aqeel told the daily these certificates must be approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prior to submitting them to the PAM upon request. She pointed out PAM continues to request the endorsement of certificates of engineers, in cooperation with the Society of Engineers and the same applies to teachers of the people with special needs, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.

She added, PAM is currently evaluating the mechanism of endorsing the engineers certificates, and if successful, the experience can be expanded to include additional professionals.

Source:Al-Rai daily


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