Students are between the risk of expulsion from universities and protests at embassy headquarters
In the face of successive corruption across governments... where there are those who suffer bitterly due to the interruption of their expenses in foreign countries, and there is a group who suffers from both matters, as they paid between 2000 and 3000 dollars to officials in the Ministry of Higher Education in order to obtain a prestigious scholarship, then they were surprised after being sent to the country by the falsehood of the dreams that were promoted to them. Officials at the Ministry of Higher Education, and this is what the newspaper’s investigation indicated.Yemen Press“In September 2014 AD, the investigation here revealed the random distribution of scholarships, their trading, and their failure to distribute them according to a legal mechanism. It also revealed the extension for struggling students for a period of more than five years, and the sending of 160 students, both male and female, with low percentages, under 90%; Of them, 18 were between 79% and 60%, according to a document issued by the Central Organization for Oversight and Accounting during the year 2013 AD. The efforts of the Yemeni House of Representatives did not lead to confronting this phenomenon despite its interrogation of the ministry’s leadership.
The annual expenditure on scholarships reached $100 million in 2013, then decreased to $52 million in 2017, as shown by an investigation by the Yemeni Al-Mashhad newspaper under the title “Forgotten Students.”
Despite this suffering, some of the scholarship students were forced to work in foreign countries to provide a living, and some of them reached a situation like one of the scholarship students in Malaysia who tried to burn himself with fire in conjunction with a Malaysian university warning that 50 Yemeni students would be expelled if they did not pay their tuition fees before the 24th. 8/2017, as this event was among the reasons that prompted students to protest at the Yemeni embassy building in Malaysia.
Returning to the history of the protests, the first protest carried out by students was at their country’s embassy in Algeria at the end of 2012, after which the Yemeni embassies witnessed a wave of protests that continues until now. It is reported that in one of the protests at the Yemeni embassy in Algeria, Algerian security was called to disperse the students protesting at the embassy headquarters.
The same situation is in the Yemeni embassies in Morocco, Russia, and Tunisia, where the embassies closed their doors to students, with security called in to disperse the sit-in, as the Tunisia sit-in took place in February 2017, and ended with the dispersal of the sit-in on its fourth day after Tunisian security pledged to communicate with the Yemeni embassy in order to reach solutions. Possible.
As for Russia, the escalation increased by preventing embassy employees from entering the embassy building, and closing it twice, the first on 12/15/2016, and the second on 8/3/2017, as a response to the embassy’s procrastination towards them, closing its doors for four months, and using Russian security against them. The sit-in exceeded 10 days, ending on 4/27/2017.
When Radfan Al-Mas, head of the Yemeni Students Association in Russia, contacted Yemen Shabab Channel, commenting on what happened, he said: Students have been complaining about the non-payment of tuition fees since September 2016. Russian universities have given students until the end of April 2017, and that dismissal will take place in the event of non-payment of tuition fees. .
Belqis Channel reported on August 3, 2017 that there was a sit-in that took place in Poland, where the scholarship students demanded that the Yemeni embassy pay all their dues.
As for Morocco, Safwan Abu Hatem spoke on August 17, 2017 on the Yemen Shabab channel, saying: Yemeni students on scholarship in Morocco announced the resumption of their sit-in in front of the embassy headquarters after a period of 70 days at the request of the embassy, and Moroccan security was sent to break up the sit-in by the Yemeni diplomat. Izz al-Din al-Asbahi, where Moroccan security threatened them with deportation, and the embassy was closed to the students and the ambassador did not respond to them. The sit-in has entered the third day.
On the other hand, both the Jordanian and Malaysian embassies responded to the students throughout the sit-ins in 2017 and 2018. In Malaysia in 2018, we find Ambassador Bahmid sitting with the students who were protesting at the embassy headquarters, supporting their demands, but without any significant movement except out of modesty in front of the students before Eid al-Fitr. I disbursed a financial advance An urgent payment of $300 for a specific number of more than 511 students on scholarship in Malaysia, and it comes Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Khaled Al-Wasabi On the eve of their sit-in to listen to their demands.
Some students commented on Ambassador Bahmid’s Facebook post, demanding that the payment of financial dues for tuition fees be expedited. Before they were expelled from the university, like the student Ahmed Al-Shaibani - on scholarship at Limkokwing University, who commented by saying: Your Excellency the Ambassador, we ask you to look into the issue of the “Limkokwing” students, as they are on the brink of the abyss, threatened with expulsion from the university, and these days are tests, and Al-Tifani refuses to cooperate with us and return the discounts he made to them. the students.
While student Saddam Hussein Saleh, on scholarship at UPM University Malaysia, comments: I have been lying to my children since the beginning of Ramadan, and from day to day, and saying that I have work and other things to do; So that I can avoid taking them to the clothing market; To buy Eid clothes, while I had great hope after God Almighty that the advance would reach my account, but unfortunately the ambassador was able to apologize with something that he could apologize for, but until now I cannot apologize to my children because they do not understand and do not know what an apology is. The problem is that I have become indebted to most of my colleagues and friends, and therefore I cannot ask for more debt, let alone the apartment owner, the nightmare of late rents, or the remaining fees for the children’s school…. Oh God, be kind to us...and I am ready to send my account number to anyone in private in order to deposit money into it...Happy Eid Mubarak, Your Excellency the Ambassador...I will not disturb you and I will not sit in the embassy so as not to distract you in your work... Best Regards
In Jordan, the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Al-Mekhlafi, and the diplomats’ sessions with students in an attempt to absorb anger, to no avail.
But you find the situation completely different in the Yemeni embassy in Egypt, as the headquarters of the cultural attaché has been transformed into a reception hall during the month of Ramadan for all the protesters, where they eat and shout, and there is no life for those who call.
Yemeni scholarship students under special support... regularity, comfort and distinction
Contrary to the image conveyed about the situation of students under government interruption, there is another part of students who enjoy comfort, distinction, and regularity in their studies. These are scholarship students supported by civil society organizations and foreign governments.
As for civil society organizations, the most famous are: Al-Aoun Foundation for Development, AndHadhramaut Foundation for Human Development, AndCharitable Fund Foundation for Supporting Outstanding Achievers, All three of these institutions were built by Saudi businessmen of Hadhrami origin, who made Hadramaut (eastern Yemen) the starting point for their activities in sending students abroad.
The common ceiling for these three institutions is joint cooperation, and they are based on a regulatory mechanism that begins from the moment the student applies for a scholarship, ending with his graduation from the university. This mechanism is based on the principle of motivation and warning, and there is no laxity in implementing the system, despite the number of universities and countries that support it. Few, as grants are supported intermittently in (Saudi Arabia - Jordan - Turkey - Philippines - Egypt - Canada - America - France - Malaysia - India) and 20 other countries.
The number of students sent on scholarship through the Charitable Fund between the years 2008 - 2015 (before the war) in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Jordan reached 1,287 students, distributed among more than 20 universities, while we find 1,022 distributed in 21 other countries since the establishment of the Foundation in 1990 to 2015.
Scholarships abroad through these three organizations stopped significantly with the beginning of the war in Yemen in 2015, to several countries such as Saudi Arabia and America, and other countries continued to receive scholarships, such as France, Malaysia, Jordan, Turkey, and the Philippines.
Sheikh Engineer Abdullah Ahmed Bugshan
Chairman of the Founders Council
Members:
Sheikh Abdullah Salem Bahamdan
Sheikh Abdul-Ilah Salem bin Mahfouz
Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Al-Amoudi
Sheikh Hassan Mohammed bin Laden
Sheikh Salem Ahmed Basmah
Sheikh Omar Saleh Babakir
Sheikh Abdul Qadir Saeed Al-Amoudi
Sheikh Salem bin Ahmed Balhamar
These scholarships are based on differentiation between students through certain tests to nominate the best, then personal interviews for those who have passed the first stage, as well as identifying the level of English language of the students, and then selection occurs. This is not found in the Yemeni government’s scholarships, which are satisfied only with differentiation through secondary school certificates.
There are also regional offices for institutions. The Charitable Fund Foundation has offices in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Al-Aoun Foundation for Development has a regional office in Malaysia.
These three institutions have seen the fruits of this organization and commitment by their students in the emergence of patents, competition shields, and peer-reviewed research referred to as patents.
However, the statistics of the Charitable Fund Foundation (2015 AD - 2016 AD) show that there are a small number of those who withdraw from the scholarships provided to them, whether by transfer from the university to which they were sent on scholarship, or final dropout from education. Their number is 38 students, male and female, out of 1,307 male and female students, and the number of distinguished students in the centers reaches The first to 436 students.
This leaves no doubt that private institutions maintain their academic reputation by not having struggling students in their classes.
As for the support of foreign governments that provide scholarships under their sponsorship, the average scholarship in one country reaches one hundred Yemeni students per year for the bachelor’s level, and among the most prominent supporters are (Saudi Arabia - Turkey - Malaysia - Russia - Slovakia - the Czech Republic - Germany - France - China - Britain - Indonesia - Brunei - South Korea - Netherlands - Hungary - Bulgaria - Qatar)
These governments provide scholarships to Yemeni students directly through their embassies, and selection is based on the same criteria that were mentioned for private institutions.
Among the private scholarships provided to Yemen are those granted to the Total Oil Company, which provides annual scholarships until before 2015, at a rate of 20 scholarships annually, equally divided between bachelor’s degrees and graduate studies, but some of them are granted to those with influence and authority over the oil lands in which the company operates, as reported by more than one source. trusted.
The last type of support is the US State Department’s support for scholarships through AMIDEAST, the international organization for education and training since 1952, when the number of scholarship students reached four thousand in the United States of America. It also provides other scholarships to American universities in Beirut and Cairo.
The same criteria mentioned previously are adopted, especially the English language, as the scholarship requires obtaining a TOEFL certificate.
There are scholarships offered to Yemenis through external organizations that do not have offices in Yemen, but students can apply for them electronically, and this has another area to talk about.
Although some countries have closed grants due to the ongoing war in Yemen, others are still continuing to provide them, due to the availability of air and land travel routes from Yemen via (the Sultanate of Oman - Sudan - Djibouti - Egypt - Jordan) to the grant countries.
It is noteworthy that all of these institutions and governments rely in their annual reports on the stories of scholarship students. In order to demonstrate its academic reputation to societies and countries, in contrast to the Ministry of Higher Education, which did not invest in the presence of more than 9,000 male and female students abroad to transmit their success stories and strengthen its governmental reputation. On the contrary, it gained a bad reputation that increases with the passing of the months.
