the crime of the iraqi invasion of kuwait can be described as a mere journey compared to the most atrocious crime in the history of kuwait. the crime i am talking about is the one which destroyed the minds of thousands of students by a group of unscrupulous professors at the kuwait university and the public authority of applied education and training (paaet). in a courageous step, former minister of education badr alissa said in an interview with the al-shahed television a few days ago that there were 400 cases of fake degrees at the paaet, and of course at the university, too. as far as i know, no educational institution has been exposed to this size of scandals and rumors, as happened with the paaet, which dates back to the 1950s, that is to say 70 years ago, during which the authority has failed to provide the labor market even 10 percent of its needs — trained and skilled labor. it is funny, however, when the newspapers wrote a few days ago that the expatriate who entered the country on the visa which mentioned his profession as ‘shawarma’ maker ended up working as ‘professor at the paaet. undoubtedly, the man holds a university degree. on the other hand, knowledgeable sources wonder about all this neglect and slow pace of investigation, perhaps deliberate, concerning the fake doctorate and masters degrees obtained by a large number of professors from the kuwait university several years ago with the help of which they were able to take prestigious jobs. the former minister of education had earlier formed a committee headed by issam al-awadhi, in his capacity as vice-rector of the university, to examine the authenticity of these accusations, but the committee’s work did not last longer than anticipated due to the o b s t a c l e s put in the path by those who fear the truth and their accomplices. the tenure of al-awadhi as vice-rector was ended, perhaps also intentionally. he lost his right to chair the committee and this froze its activity and the investigation was interrupted. this happened despite the current minister’s keenness to end the issue, and despite his repeated promises of revealing the truth. the committee’s work is frozen while the charge of forgery in of- fi cial documents, obtaining fake doctorates, stealing public money and serious accusations are hovering over the heads of all phd holders at the kuwait university and many other institutions until the truth emerges and investigation results of this important moral and educational fi le is made known. some infl uential personalities do not wish to open this important fi le to cover the stench of scandals and not to soil the names of those who are not only satisfi ed with receiving hundreds of millions of dinars unlawfully in the form of salaries and bonuses but also have contributed, premeditatedly, to committing the crime of subverting the minds of tens of thousands of graduates of the kuwait university. this is the biggest crime ever committed against the kuwaiti people. if the government had made one tenth of efforts in terms of money and time to extradite the former director of the public institute for social security fahd al-raja’an from britain and in revealing the names of holders of fake certifi cates, the subject would have ended long ago — a year or more. here we talk about the validity of the certifi cates of thousands of kuwaitis and also many expatriates. in the same context, it is not strange that the egyptian parliamentarian gamal hindi disclosed there were 500 kuwaiti students at beni suef university who did not attend lectures, question papers were leaked to them and other scandals. after all this, we insist that we are the best in our customs and traditions than the others.
