Many expatriate workers, particularly those in the operations and maintenance sector, expressed apprehension and fear that the plan to implement profession test was aimed at phasing them out. The worry is voiced mostly by Bangladeshi workers who are classified as laborers and mostly deployed in maintenance and services sector. “I am on a labor visa, and I do all types of job. Sometimes I am a carpenter, sometimes electrician, sometimes a tea boy. What kind of test I will have to take?” asked Shamsul Alam, a Bangladeshi working for a local contracting company. Moh'd Shahdahan, another Bangladeshi worker who works as a cleaner, said he is not worried. “I am just an office boy; nobody will take my job,” he said. Oscar, a Filipino carpenter who makes custom-made doors, said he was not worried. “I am not worried; I am a trade school graduate in carpentry,” he told Saudi Gazette. For Frankie Nicolas, an automotive mechanic who now runs his own shop under local sponsorship, has welcomed the professional test decision. “There are very few Saudi automotive mechanics working here in Qudariyah (the section of an industrial site in Dammam where most of the auto repair shops are located),” he said. Minister of Labor Ghazi Al-Gosaibi announced recently at the inauguration of the national vocational license project in Riyadh that professional tests for expatriates will soon be implemented. He said the aim of the measure is to eliminate the illegal trading in visas, the so-called free-visas, a practice that has exploited workers. The move will also stop unscrupulous sponsors. The labor minister said the tests will be done in phases in all companies and establishments across the Kingdom. He said foreign workers can voluntarily submit themselves for the tests. Newly recruited workers will be subjected to test at the time of the renewal of their Iqama. The professional tests for expatriates are required only in the vocational and technical professions, according to Zaidan Al-Zaidan, Director of the Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF) in the Eastern Province. “These tests are applied to foreign workers deployed in vocational and technical positions. The government wanted to make sure that what is written in their Iqama is actually their profession. If a worker, for example, is carrying an Iqama which says he is a carpenter, then he should be doing carpentry job. If found to be true that he is a carpenter and doing the same job, he will be certified,” Al-Zaidan said. The test will be conducted by the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC)), which has offices across the Kingdom. Al-Zaidan said the planned profession test is a step toward the establishment of a national job certification program. “This decision also aims to enhance productivity and upgrade technical knowledge and therefore contribute in improving the expertise of workers,” he said. The qualifying and licensing will be fully automated, and enrollees will be required to appear personally at TVTC Testing Centers to present documentation and undergo fingerprinting. Professional tests for expatriates are already being conducted in the medical profession. Nurses, upon their arrival to take jobs in government and private hospitals, are required to pass qualifying examinations given by the Ministry of Health. Three failures results in disqualification, and the nurse is sent home, said Mary Jane P. Tupas, Director of Nursing at the Mohammad Dossary Hospital in Al-Khobar. After first two failures, nurses are given another chance by requiring them to undertake series of training, after which are take another test. If they pass the test, then they are certified to practice, she said. Although Bangladeshi workers Shamsul Alam and Moh's Shahdahan consider their work menial and that no Saudi would be interested to grab their jobs, they are worried that the move is already the start of a crackdown against those working in jobs not specified in Iqamas. “Our company should be blamed, not us, because they put the job in our contract – in our Iqama – although we are not hired for the job we are working,” Alam said. __
