BURAIDAH: Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University has failed to obey a 2006 court order to reimburse the tuition fees of a group of graduates of an English-diploma program that was wrongly advertised as accredited by the Saudi authorities.
The Court of Grievances in Riyadh ordered the university in December 2006 to pay each of the students SR25,000.
Abdulmalik bin Abdulaziz Al-Shalhoob, media consultant for the university’s rector, Sulaiman bin Abdullah Abalkhail, said the university is following procedures to execute the court order. “The rector has assured that the university has finalized all procedures and undertaken necessary requirements in paying back the fees to the students as per the court order,” said Al-Shalhoob.
He added that the university has done its part and referred all papers regarding the issue to the concerned authorities.
Sattam bin Saleh Al-Awad, one of the graduates and the students’ spokesperson, dismissed Al-Shalhoob’s statement saying it is only “hollow words deprived of any real meaning.”
“The university has declined to carry out the court order. Three budgets have been passed since the court order but we haven’t been paid a single halala,” Sattam told Arab News yesterday.
He added that the reluctance to obey the court order will not only lead to a deterioration in the university’s public image but also lead to a lack of confidence in our judicial system as a whole.
Abalkhail told Arab News in August 2007 that the 110 students would be reimbursed as soon as possible. “The court order was in 2006. It is now April 2009. It has been proved that such statements are not reliable anymore,” said Sattam.
The plight of the graduates started in 2001 when Al-Faisal Academy announced a two-year academic program to qualify students as elementary English teachers. The program was affiliated with and sponsored by Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University. The program claimed to have been accredited by the Ministry of Education and accepted by the Ministry of Civil Service. The degrees the students were awarded bore the seal of Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University and Al-Faisal Academy.
Students only learned after graduation that the program was not recognized. The two-year program was taught by Al-Faisal Academy on the campuses of Imam University in four regions: Qassim, Riyadh, Madinah and Ahsa.
The university’s reluctance to obey the court order led the students to file a complaint with the Ministry of Interior to enforce the ruling. The complaint was then passed to the Ministry of Higher Education, which referred the case back to the university.
A number of leading Saudi journalists and columnists have written extensively in various Saudi newspapers on the plight of these students and on the urgent need for the Islamic university to comply with the court order and pay back the students.
