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27-11-2018

Times of Oman

Muscat: The man behind exposing higher education employees with fake documents has spoken to Times of Oman about why he is so passionate about the cause.

Dr. Muwafiq bin Fawaz Al Ruweili, a former Shura Council Member in Saudi Arabia, is currently working on a project to expose higher education employees all over the Middle East, who have fake certificates.

“This is not new,” he said in an exclusive interview with Times of Oman. “When I was in the [Saudi] Shura Council, we worked on a bill to combat fake certificates from imaginary institutions.”

Al Ruweili has been taking his plans to social media, “Now, I do the same through Twitter. It took one or two tweets exposing employees in Oman for the public to pay attention. Now that they know about it, I plan to move forward. I will search through every higher education institute in Oman, just like I did in Saudi Arabia, in order to inform the public about employees with fake certificates,” Al Ruweili said.

Educational institutions in Oman must contact the Ministry of Higher Education according to procedure before hiring employees to make certain that these employees have valid certificates.

Khadija Al Qurashi, Director of the Qualification Equivalency and Recognition department at the Ministry of Higher Education, called on all institutions to contact the ministry regarding the certificates of their employees.

This came after Al Ruweili began exposing a number of employees in higher education institutions in Oman who were employed using fake degrees. “Someone from the Qualification Equivalency and Recognition department at the Ministry of Higher Education thanked me,” he said, adding, “Omanis seem to be interested in learning about this. I think Oman’s response during these past few days has been fantastic.”

“It’s a form of protection,” he added. “Just like how countries protect the society from thieves or persons with fabricated identities, they work to protect the country from persons with fake certificates.”

Al Qurashi added that the ministry deals severely with any information regarding the possibility of fake certificates or those coming from non-existent institutions and that the ministry has a specialised committee that examines such information.

For cases of fake certificates, Al Qurashi added that the Council of Ministers has made a decision that all cases must go to the Public Prosecution for legal action.

Al Ruweili has a simple method for discerning whether someone’s university is legitimate or not.

“A Google search is all it takes,” he said. “I go through lists of fake universities. Once you type in the name of the fake university and then the country, you will get a list of employees who listed the fake university as part of their credentials. And that’s it.” According to Al Qurashi, the ministry examines all incoming certificates that it receives, whether they come from Omani citizens, institutions or job-seeking expats. Some certificates from the expat labour are not reported to the ministry, she added.

Forging certificates is illegal and can lead to dire legal consequences, as the forged certificates themselves can harm individuals, institutions, and the country in general.