BURAIDAH, 8 August 2007 — The Ministry of Higher Education has referred a complaint filed by a number of English diploma holders back to Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University.
The Court of Grievances in Riyadh ruled last December in favor of 110 graduates of a two-year English teacher program that was advertised by the university as accredited by the Civil Service Ministry and the Ministry of Education.
The program, in reality, was unrecognized and worthless. The court subsequently directed the university to reimburse SR25,000 in fees to each of the graduates.
The two-year program was run by the Al-Faisal Academy on the premises of Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in four regions of the Kingdom, including Qasim, Riyadh, Madinah and Al-Ahsa, and is no longer available at the university.
The university’s reluctance to obey the court order led the students to file a complaint to the Ministry of Interior to enforce the court decision. The complaint bureaucratically ended up at the Ministry of Higher Education.
“The complaint has been referred to the university for possible compliance with the court order,” said Sulaiman Al-Seleem, the director of university affairs at the Ministry of Higher Education.
When asked about what the ministry has asked the university to comply with, Al-Saleem said, “I have no further comment,” adding that he is not in a position to provide the press with any details.
Reacting to news of the referral, the graduates have expressed fears that referring the case to the university will only add to their problems as the university has taken no steps to comply with the court order. “We were told by the Ministry of Higher Education that the university is an independent entity and it is not possible to force it to comply with the order,” the graduates said after visiting the ministry’s headquarters in Riyadh yesterday. “How can they refer the case to our opponent in the trial?” they asked.
The students said that the Ministry of Higher Education is the body responsible for governmental universities in the Kingdom. They cited article 13 of the regulations of the Higher Education Council, which stipulates that “the minister of higher education presides over the council of every university and is responsible for monitoring the execution of the state’s educational policy.”
Though 1,500 students graduated from the program, only 110 filed the complaint against the university four years ago.
