2,400 overseas degrees under scrutiny as Kuwait cracks down on workers with forged degree certificates
Measures against employees with fake degrees include salary cuts, dismissal from jobs
Cairo: Kuwaiti authorities said they have taken tough measures against state employees who furnished forged degrees to get their jobs.
The Civil Service Commission, the country’s state employment agency, has disclosed that the measures targeting such workers have comprised the holders of fake MA and doctoral degrees.
The measures included depriving of remunerations and dismissal from the job, the commission said, according to the Kuwaiti news portal Al Majilis.
The commission has also disclosed that it sent around 2,400 degrees obtained from abroad to the Ministry of High Education for scrutiny.
In January, Kuwait unveiled a plan to examine the education certificates of all employees at different government agencies dating back to the year 2000 as part of efforts to expose forged degrees.
The Civil Service Commission had asked all ministries and government institutions to provide it with full data on their employees’ university education certificates related to all national and expatriate workers, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported at the time, citing “well-informed” sources.
The commission pointed out that its request came in response to governmental directives on conducting an equivalence process for degrees above the high school education obtained from abroad.
The commission had also requested listing names and data of government employees holding above-high school degrees obtained since January of the year 2000 onwards. The process applies to Kuwaiti and foreign employees, according to the report.
The list should also include copies of the degrees, majors, the alma mater university, the home country and the equivalent certificate approved by the Kuwaiti Ministry of High Education.
The measure is part of efforts in Kuwait to thoroughly examine certificates and expose the forged degrees after a three-member committee, formed by the government to verify education certificates, had requested access to basic data to enable it to revise dubious documents.