AMAL and Sultan both hold master’s degrees, yet both are suffering because the Ministry of Higher Education has a weird hobby of making complications to make people regret the nights they spent studying, the money they lost in buying expensive books and the days they spent thinking about obtaining doctoral degrees.

Instead of studying, if these two bright young Saudis had spent sleepless nights following TV programs such as “The Poet of the Million” or “Star Academy” or followed up the open auction for Al-Wihdah soccer player Issa Al-Mahyani they would have been in a better psychological state right now.

Amal graduated from the secondary school with high grades and then joined Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah. She got married while at the university, but this did not hinder her from obtaining her bachelor’s degree with honors (95 percent). She continued her studies and obtained her master’s, also with honors. She is now working on her Ph.D.

Throughout these years the university had been advertising its need for lecturers and demonstrators. Each time Amal would carry her green hanging file and apply to the university administration for the vacant job she would discover that the job had been given to another newly graduated girl with lower grades.

Because her name is Amal (which means Hope), she did not succumb to despair. She knocked on all doors all the time remembering the agony her husband suffered while looking for textbooks and references inside and outside the Kingdom. She refused to relinquish what she believed to be her right. She sent cables and complaints to concerned officials, but to no avail. She said the officials of her university said to her father: “Well, your daughter has complained to the minister. Let him appoint her!”

Sultan obtained his master’s degree from a Jordanian university. When he was getting ready to begin his Ph.D, he was told that his university was not recognized because it was outside the map of the Higher Education Ministry. What surprises Sultan is that his Jordanian colleagues at the very same university have been appointed and are now lecturing in Saudi universities.

Sultan’s certificate will not help him in his work. The ministry does not recognize the certificates of the Saudis who graduate from this university. At the same time the ministry recognizes the certificates of Jordanians who are graduates of the same university — and of course it will recognize the certificates of the Saudis whom these Jordanians teach!

I admit that the ministry has its own standards and parameters. With due respect to these parameters, I would confidently say if Amal were only carrying a bachelor’s degree, she would have obtained the job with the help of a little wasta (connection).

If Sultan had been taught by his Jordanian colleagues who graduated from the same Jordanian university he would have been allowed to carry on with his Ph.D.