... And then it all fell apart
By Ahmad alsarraf
All the confusion that we live in is caused by poor planning as a result of the low level of education.
❑ Three
personalities who directly influenced the ‘official’ education process in Kuwait, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Jaber, Abdulaziz Mulla Hussein and Khaled Al-Masoud, each of them had their fingerprints and possessed a margin of freedom to bring about the change and amendment they desired, and after them the things began to fall apart.
The government’s attention to the extent of the danger and importance of the education facility coincided with the attention of the Muslim Brotherhood (Guidance Society – Social Reform Society later) (to the same matter, and the two parties’ efforts to control education, each according to his agenda.
With time, there appeared something like a silent agreement between the authority and the Brotherhood, provided that representatives of the conservative religious trends would take over all the small affairs of the ministry, including curricula, appointing assistant undersecretaries and setting education policies.
The “big” affairs of the ministry went to the liberals or opponents of extremist trends, such as the position of minister to have control over making any changes that the authority or the Brotherhood does not desire.
Thus we saw the assumption of a ‘constellation’ of the best open minds to the ministry portfolio, who were known for their sincerity and experience, but almost none of them was allowed to make any radical changes in the solid internal structure of the ministry, as the eyes of the Brotherhood from within it monitored their actions and disrupted them.
The government also allowed the Brotherhood’s forces to turn the Teachers’ Association into a fortress belonging to them. It also facilitated them to control student unions and attended their conferences, despite their lack of recognition.
These unions were at some point, and perhaps still, even stronger than the University administration.
The Brotherhood’s complete control over the educational facility has a negative impact on the level of institutions and outputs, and everyone is complaining about the serious decline in the ability and understanding of high school graduates, the graduate of the sole orphan public university, and its commercial sisters, with very few exceptions.
The political parties transformed the campus into a political body, and took it outside the scope of scientific research, after stifling ‘academic freedoms’ at the university, and making the university a tool for incubating degrees, and a factory for future deputies, whose job is to pay attention to the banalities of issues such as uniforms of female students, parking lots, satisfying unions, permitting interventions, and accepting mediations.
It was not strange therefore to notice that the ‘student leaders’ at the university, and the majority of them were from the Brotherhood who later became MPs and ministers.
Almost all students knew that the path to fame and wealth is through the party, not excellence in university work, which made the university lose its meaning with time due to religious parties. Thus, we reached this lowest level of education in all indicators, which resulted in moral decline, the results of which we have started reaping.
If we look deep into the qualification of some doctors and how they obtained their doctorates, we will see the difference between the earth and the sky. A majority of them receive salaries and bonuses they don’t deserve.
The state was generous in spending 11 billion dollars to build a stone, aluminum and concrete university in the middle of the desert, and has not spent a tenth of that on building people in the city center.
Perhaps the reason, maybe, some may believe that the bright edifice poses less of a threat to the government than a bright student.