Kuwait’s Ministry of Higher Education has been tasked with checking the degree certificates of state employees after civil servants were discovered to have forged credentials.
In July, the ministry said that it had referred a large number of cases to public prosecutors. Some of the people involved in the authentication of fake degrees were said to have worked in the department and helped those with forged certificates to get jobs in the government, according to the Kuwait Times.
Acting prime minister and foreign minister Shaikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah said that the government was “determined to pursue legal action against employees – regardless of their positions – who sought fake educational certificates as well as those who helped them”, the Gulf Daily News reported.
A committee, which also comprises of members of the Civil Service Bureau and the fatwa and legislation departments, will examine the education certificates of state employees to verify their authenticity. It will also establish how to electronically link degree verification between relevant bodies and provide a monthly report on what action is being taken.
At the same time, the Ministry of Health has tasked a special committee with examining and validating postgraduate degrees of its employees, including both Kuwaiti and expatriate doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technicians and administrative staff members.
The country has been dogged by issues surrounding fake degrees for years: in 2015, the Ministry of Higher Education summoned hundreds of people accused of holding fake degrees to court.
