The Indian government has written to Kuwait, saying that most Indian engineers have valid qualifications that should be recognized in the country. The move comes following the Kuwaiti government’s decision to make it mandatory for expatriate engineers to get a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Kuwait Society of Engineers (KSE).
The Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development has now said that many engineers from the country would have received their degrees from institutes that would probably not be listed by the National Board of Accreditation (NBA). “Since NBA has started functioning only from 2012, it is possible that some engineers are currently working in Kuwait who acquired degrees prior to setting up of NBA. It is requested that the qualification of such engineers may not be questioned at this later stage,” the letter said, the Hindustan Times reported.
The government also highlighted that some premier institutions of excellence in the field of engineering have been created by India, in which candidates are admitted only after going through a highly competitive entrance examination.
“These institutes have their own system of accreditation through External Peer Group reviews. Government of India considers that the students graduating from these institutions have qualified duly accredited courses,” R Subrahmanyam, higher education secretary in the HRD ministry, stated in the letter, as per the report.
Thousands of Indian engineers in Kuwait have been panicking, including many who are graduates of premier Indian engineering institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and National Institute of Technology (NIT), the report added.
Kuwait’s Public Authority for Manpower enforced in March this year a newly introduced regulation, according to which expatriate engineers would be unable to renew their work visas until they get a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the KSE. In order to acquire the NOC, the applicant must be a graduate from a university that is on the list of accredited universities, and in courses included on the KSE master list.
The move by the Kuwait government is believed to have affected over 15,000 Indian engineers.
Most engineers are in the age group of 30-45 years and graduated long before NBA got into the act, Jyothidas Narayan, a member of the Kuwait Engineers Forum, which represents 1,400 engineers in the construction and oil & gas industry had earlier said. Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, who heads the Parliamentary Standing Committee of External Affairs, had then told the Indian embassy in Kuwait to have a dialogue with authorities in the country.
In March, the Kuwait Engineers Forum (KEF) had posted the problems faced by them on the social media, saying that they are going through a tough phase.
“At present our job, our family, our life itself is being disturbed by the circular dated 11 March, 2018 issued by Public Authority of Manpower (PAM) advising the concerned authorities that all expatriate engineers should obtain NOC from Kuwait Society of Engineers (KSE) for renewal of residency,” the KEF said on Facebook, adding that the most important possession of the engineers — their educational qualification — is “being challenged and the whole Indian educational system is being questioned.”