Public education in Kuwait is quite a failure” says former MP and Professor of Curricula and Methodologies at the College of Education in Kuwait University Salwa Al-Jassar. She stressed that the main evidence of the fact that public education is a failure is that most of the secondarylevel graduates who obtain around 90 percent in their school exams do not pass the aptitude tests of the university.

Regarding the Shaddadiya University project, Prof. Al- Jassar explained that this project is one of the major projects of Kuwait. However, it suffers from spread of corruption in all fields including administrative and financial. The failure to complete the project so far is because the control of the project is with people who have personal agendas. She indicated that the repeated fire incidents at the project sites were committed deliberately.

Prof Al-Jassar lamented that Ministry of Education has been controlled by a religious party for more than 20 years, indicating that this party has been responsible for appointing deans and heads of departments for more than one term solely because they belong to that party and not because of their efficiency. She stressed that the holders of fake academic certificates were not questioned, and that a number of senior officials decided to resign when this file was opened. Meanwhile, the Education Ministry intends to replace expatriate employees in the academic sector with citizens in line with the Kuwaitization policy, reports Al-Shahid daily quoting sources.

Sources revealed this is part of a new plan, which started this school year, to limit the recruitment of expatriates; indicating 331 expatriates have so far been hired since the beginning of the school year. It is worth mentioning that the health sector came in second in terms of hiring new employees a total of 259 new employees including dentists, general practitioners, nurses and support medical services. Sources said 123 new employees were hired directly without the need to obtain approval from the Civil Service Commission (CSC); disclosing these employees are now assigned at the Fatwa and Legislation Department, Justice Ministry, Kuwait Ports Authority (KPA), National Assembly and Kuwait Municipality. Sources added the number of expatriates hired by governmental bodies reduced by 790 this year, while the number of Kuwaitis recruited reached 11,500.

SOURCE : ARABTIMES