By Saeed Al-Surahi
Okaz
UNIVERSITIES have their rightful reputations, which grants each educational institution the right to appoint their professors away from the requirements of the Ministry of Civil Service and the right to recruit foreign professors away from the requirements of the Ministry of Labor.
This is what granted universities the right to recruit anyone they desire anytime they wish, while many higher studies graduates, who are our sons and daughters, suffer from unemployment even though they are graduates from our own universities or have graduated from the same universities as the professors who are recruited and from universities with academic reputation that exceeds those other universities.
It may become understandable and acceptable if recruitment is limited to professors with rare or specialized majors or experiences in education that our unemployed sons and daughters do not have. However, it seems strange and questionable if we know that some of the professors who are recruited are new graduates themselves. Some of them have advanced in the educational ladder during their contract period in our universities in Saudi Arabia. But many of them have not had any reputation of academic excellence in the field of research, but have been contracted on the basis of completion of a PhD degree, which makes any distinction between them and our struggling, unemployed sons and daughters who have the same degree invalid.
Universities have their reputable structures, yet citizens of this country have rights that must be protected, therefore, the unemployment issue that many higher studies graduates suffer from remain unresolved as long as foreign recruitment and contracting remains wide open. And if the coordination between the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Health has succeeded in closing the door on foreign recruitment of dentists, a similar coordination should be maintained between the Ministry of Labor and universities that guides recruitment processes and saves our higher studies graduates from the plight of unemployment.
