Mohammed Bin Ali Al-Hirfi Okaz The campaign against bogus degrees is not new. I took part in it before it had developed into an organized drive with a social dimension. During my work with the campaign I came to realize the danger of these degrees. The phenomenon of forged certificates is not limited to the Kingdom only but is found everywhere. Some of our universities have taken over a number of holders of forged certificates. They have thus become university staff members without genuine qualifications. Regrettably, when holders of faked certificates were discovered, the only punishment meted out to them was deportation. All holders of forged certificates are dangerous. The danger, however, varies from one certificate to another. To forge an arts certificate is less harmful that forging medical or nursing certificates because they may have disastrous results on society. Some well-known names including religious preachers and journalists were working with forged certificates. People used to ask: how can we trust what these people say or write when they themselves have committed the felony of working with fake certificates? They have been deceiving society all this time. The Ministry of Education's efforts to put an end to this phenomenon are appreciated but we need more organized and systematic measures to weed out all the fake certificates, whether obtained by Saudis or foreigners. It was announced recently that 330 offices selling fake university and higher certificates were closed down. I was shocked by the report. Who will believe that such a large number of offices selling forged certificates exist in our country? Why were we silent about them all this time? How were these hundreds of offices established? Who allowed them to operate? Why did the ministries of education and higher education keep mum on them? Why did the government departments concerned with issuing commercial licenses also kept silent? Quick measures should have been taken to close these offices a long time ago before the phenomenon had assumed epic proportions, but nothing of the sort had happened. The existence of such a large number of offices which sell fake certificates is an indicator of lack of ethics. If there were no customers who were able to pay, these offices would not have survived. In their propaganda, these offices used to announce a certain price for a university degree with a big discount for anyone who also purchases a higher degree with it. There is a difference between fake degrees and certificates from universities not recognized by the Ministry of Higher Education. These may be genuine universities recognized in their countries. Saudi universities normally employ their graduates if they are not Saudis. This is an outright injustice. The ministry does not recognize all the Egyptian universities while it employs their non-Saudi graduates. The ministry should not make any distinction and should refuse all their graduates, whether Saudis or Egyptians. I would like to recommend to all government departments, especially the Ministry of Health, to check the degrees at their original universities. Actually when they were asked, a number of foreign universities said they had not issued these certificates at all. Checking data from the original universities is not a costly procedure but it will definitely save many lives in our country. Those who were involved in lies and forgery should not use fake certificates and should be punished severely for their deceit.
