The Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) said it will continue to request photo IDs from female students before allowing them to take their exams. The action comes after a series of incidents where trainees allowed their relatives to sit exams for them. The TVTC Director General of Private Training Dr. Mubarak Bin Muhammad Aal Tami said: “The photo IDs are a temporary measure to prevent impersonation and the resulting injustice to other female trainees.” He claimed that some trainees passed computer exams with flying colors only for it to emerge that their relatives took their exams for them. This has resulted in students getting jobs in the IT sector without having ever sat an exam. “When the company realizes that the girl doesn't know anything about computers, then the private training institutes and TVTC have to bear the responsibility for this and the credibility of the certificates issued is shaken,” Aal Tami said. In order for a trainee to enter an examination, she has to submit a personal photo, which is then attached to a form with her name, civil register number and her training program. After the form is stamped by the female principal, it is returned to the trainee to use it as an ID document to show the female examination invigilators. However, several of the trainees' guardians are furious with the rule, which they believe is an affront to the girl's modesty. They have proposed that female officials identify the girls to the exam invigilators instead of asking them for their photos. They say “the trainee could be obliged to sign an undertaking that if another girl is discovered impersonating her then she would be liable to severe punishment.” Aal Tami insisted that the measure has been applied to all female trainees in all private institutes Kingdomwide and that it only involves the female principal of the institute and the girl trainee. He also announced that “TVTC intends to implement a fingerprinting system as a radical solution to the impersonation scams that private institutes are suffering from.” __
