Exams fraud destroying society

KUWAIT CITY, Jan 29: The parliamentary Education, Culture and Guidance Affairs Committee on Sunday discussed the cheating in exams issue with the acting undersecretary and assistant undersecretaries at the Ministry of Education. Committee Chairman MP Hamad Al- Matar urged His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah to dismiss senior ministry officials who were appointed as per the decrees he issued earlier.

He said they deliberated on the widespread cheating in exams; indicating the senior officials who represented the ministry provided short, flawed and inaccurate answers to the queries of the committee. He said these officials neither provided a vision on solving the issue nor responded to the questions. He added the acting undersecretary informed the committee that the ministry called its Interior counterpart after the cheating issue went viral on social media, wondering why the senior officials took action only after the spread of such news on social media. He believes this is a clear manifestation that the ministry was not aware of the problem, stressing the need to dismiss the senior officials immediately or within a week at the latest.

Pointed
He pointed out that governments in some countries resigned because of a train accident, while cheating in exams in Kuwait has become a part of culture. He said the number of cheating cases among students has reached 40,000 and their parents or guardians tolerated such behavior.

He warned that the issue is destroying society; indicating one student asked the proctor to allow him to cheat and when the latter refused, the student argued: “Everyone is cheating, why I am not allowed to do the same?” He revealed that he decided to leave the meeting even before it ended due to the failure of the ministry’s representatives to give satisfactory responses to the queries of the committee. “While the senior officials at the ministry did not reply to the questions adequately, I received the plans of teachers to address the issue,” he stated.

Signed
He submitted a request signed by 10 lawmakers to hold a special session to discuss the issue in the first week of February, affirming the committee will complete its review of MP Abdulkareem Al- Kandari’s report about education prior to the special session. He affirmed that corruption in education is on top of the list of urgent issues; hence, the need for the interim government to attend the special session.

Meanwhile, MP Fares Al-Otaibi asked Minister of Education, Higher Education and Research Ahmad Abdulwahab Al-Adwani to provide him with the following: job descriptions of the directors of the educational district, special education, coordination and monitoring departments; amendments to these job descriptions since 2012 till date; advertisement for the recruitment of these directors since 2012 till date; and curriculum vitae of those who occupied such positions since 2012 till date. MP Hamdan Al-Azmi forwarded queries to all ministers on the strategies for hazard management and restoring digital data in case they are lost, hacked or leaked by servers; criteria in classifying confidential digital data; number of smart phone applications and websites in ministries and their subsidiaries; departments tasked to operate, update and maintain these applications and websites; and companies that signed contracts with ministries for the switch to digital systems.

In addition, Assembly Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun recently met with Omani Ambassador to Kuwait Saleh bin Amer Al-Khurousi and a delegation from the Omani National Defense College headed by Dr Ahmed bin Salem Ba Omar. Vice Chairman of the Omani Diplomatic Mission Counselor Shehab bin Salem Al- Rawas attended the meeting. By Saeed Mahmoud Saleh Arab Times Staff