Yemeni scholarship students around the world... between government interruption and private support (Part Two)

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.

Student protests inside the Yemeni embassy in Malaysia
Student protests inside the headquarters of the Yemeni Cultural Mission in Egypt

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.

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.

 ويصل عدد الطلاب المبتعثين عبر الصندوق الخيري بين عامي 2008  – 2015  (قبل الحرب) في كل من السعودية وماليزيا والأردن إلى 1287 طالب، موزعين على أكثر من 20 جامعة، بينما نجد 1022 موزعين على 21 دولة أخرى منذ نشوء المؤسسة بعام 1990 إلى 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.

والنوع الأخير من الدعم، وهو دعم وزارة الخارجية الأمريكية للمنح الدراسية عبر منظمة “آمديست” الدولية للتعليم والتدريب منذ عام 1952 حيث بلغ عدد المبتعثين إلى أربعة الأف مبتعث بالولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، كما أنها تقدم منح أخرى للجامعات الأمريكية ببيروت والقاهرة.

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.

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