Enough is Enough: Corruption, Racism, and Fascism in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman

Enough is Enough: Corruption, Racism, and Fascism in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman Published on July 25, 2020

Ali Mansouri Writer, Researcher, Consultant

“Fighting Corruption is like cleaning a staircase. You must start from the top to the bottom.”

Lee Kuan Yew 1st Prime Minister of Singapore* (This is the story of a University Professor who came to Oman to work as an academic on 9/11/2001—one of the most critical turning points in the modern history of the world. He stayed working and living in Oman for more than 15 years. The story is narrated by the Professor himself.)

Introduction There is no system of higher education as such in Oman. There are concepts, conceptions, misconceptions, notions, and ideas unrelated to one another and are contradictory in most practices and cases. Whenever the term “system” is mentioned here in reference to Oman's higher education, it is used metaphorically. This has made Oman higher education a fertile field for experimentation by experts and non-experts, specialists and non-specialists from all over the world! You may never find this peculiar, and most frustrating, situation anywhere else. It has also given way to corruption, incompetence, ignorance, arrogance, racism, and fascism on a large scale.

This is largely due to the fact that the top officials leading higher education in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman and in many colleges and universities are not rigorously vetted in and are mostly without academic qualifications and experience.

They are appointed for reasons other than academic ones.

Like most Arab ministers, the Minister of Higher Education in Oman has surrounded herself with advisors and consultants, most of whom are incompetent, corrupt, and opportunists. They tell her what they want her to know and only what is in their personal gains and interests. So she knows little or nothing about what goes on in the

Ministry or the colleges. She never communicates directly with students and teachers.

She is content with what the top officials in the private colleges and university would tell her directly or in documents, most of which are fabricated. Her approach is clearly faulty and a complete failure. The lady is incompetent and cannot fight corruption as those corrupt people around her are wolves and real villains. She cannot stand up to their corruption, fraud, and thievery.

The Undersecretary of the Ministry has taken advantage of this situation and he acts as the real minister. He is no less corrupt and incompetent. He never meets any student or teacher. He spends most of his time in meetings with businessmen and representatives of big companies not only during his daytime schedules but also in the evenings when he would reserve luxury hotels and venues for his corrupt activities.

The former Director-General of Colleges (now the Secretary-General of the Council of Education) has always played the biggest role in corrupting the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman. He is a creeper and a social climber. He is very arrogant, ignorant, and a big thief. He embezzles millions of dollars from the Ministry every year by his corrupt contracts with some Recruitment Agencies in Oman. The man is crooked in every sense of the word. He is disrespectful and morally rotten in mentality and behavior.

When you move to the private colleges and universities which are supposed to be supervised by the Ministry of Higher Education, you find the bleakest picture you may ever see in higher education. Most of the top officials in these colleges and universities are unqualified, incompetent, and big thieves. This nasty situation has given rise to groups of top officials who are among the most corrupt, racist, and fascist officials in Oman and the world.

There are serious problems and challenges facing higher education in Oman. The absence of any sort of democracy or freedom of expression in management, the toxic work environment where a written memo within your job will lead to the termination of the work contract or to jail for years, the widespread culture of fear and hypocrisy, bribery, forgery of grades, fraud, and embezzlement of huge amounts of money, and “deep state corruption” are among these problems and challenges.

The outlook is bleak. The situation is dire. There is an urgency for in-depth reviews and far-reaching reforms.

The Starting-Point The higher education “system” in Oman is relatively young as it only started in the 80s when the first university in the country, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), opened its doors for 500 students in 1986. Before that, students were used to be sent on

government scholarships to other countries, including the US and the UK, for their higher education.

There are only nine colleges in SQU: Arts and Social Sciences, Commerce and Economics, Education, Law, Nursing, Agriculture and Marine Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Engineering, and Science.

The Ministry of Higher Education runs six colleges dedicated to applied sciences.

These colleges used to be colleges of education with the main aim of providing Omani schools with teachers for different school subjects. They were later transformed into Colleges of Applied Sciences as per the Royal Decree No. 62/2007 issued in 2005. These colleges have changed their role in order to provide Omani workforce for the labor market in such specializations as international business administration, communication, design, engineering, and IT. These colleges are located in Ibri, Nizwa, Salalah, Sohar, Sur, and Rustaq. The Ministry of Manpower operates the Higher College of Technology in Muscat and six colleges of technology in Al-Mussana, Ibra, Ibri, Nizwa, Salalah, and Shinas. The Ministry of Health runs a number of health institutes to prepare to assist medical staff like nurses, paramedics, and pharmacists. The Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs runs the Institute of Sharia Sciences in Muscat. The Central Bank of Oman sanctions the College of Banking and Financial Studies which is also in Muscat.

As the SQU was incapable of providing higher education for the increasing numbers of school-leavers, the Omani government decided to open the door for the private sector to play an active role in providing higher education to the increasing numbers of students. The University of Sohar started in 1994 and then the University of Nizwa in 2004; the University of Dhofar in Salalah in 2004 and the Universities of Buraimi and A’Sharqiyah in 2010. A number of private colleges have also been established to offer higher education to Omani and international students.

At present, there are 54 higher education institutions in Oman providing thousands of students with higher education in different specializations. In spite of the fact that access to higher education has been constantly and rapidly growing over the last four decades in Oman, higher education is still, however, facing a number of challenges such as enhancing the quality of education, preparing Omani students with all the skills needed to face the challenges of globalization while preserving their cultural identity, aligning higher education outcomes with the needs of the job market and attracting qualified and efficient teaching staff for the higher education institutions.

These are challenges that the higher education system in Oman needs to face and tackle in order to improve its competitiveness and contribute to the sustainable development of the country.

The Oman system of higher education has also a well-known distinguishing feature of employing a very large number of expatriates without whom it will stop functioning;

hence, the importance of managing this “army” of expatriates effectively and improving their academic and social status.

(For more details, read my article: “On the Occasion of Oman National Day: Higher Education and Sustainable Development” published on LinkedIn on November 18, 2015) Rustaq College of Education: Rustaq College of Corruption I was teaching M.A. and Ph.D. students at a university in Jordan when I signed my work contract with the Omani Ministry of Higher Education. The Ministry offered no details of the job or the work contract; it just provided an air ticket.

I arrived at A’Seeb Airport (the name has been changed to Muscat Airport) on 9/11/2001. A representative from the Ministry met me at the airport with a very friendly smile I still remember after more than 17 years! He drove me to a nice hotel through many modern well-lit streets with beautiful flowers arranged with a gentle touch on both sides! I felt very hopeful and optimistic about my new job.

The following morning, I was driven from the hotel in Muscat to Al-Sawadi hotel in Barka- a well-known commercial district in Oman. I was told I would be allowed to stay at the hotel for two days only at the expense of the Rustaq College, after which I would have to report to work at the College, find my own accommodation or pay my own expenses. This information was passed to me orally by a driver from the College in a very impolite way. Imagine yourself arriving a foreign country to take up an academic job and you are required to find your own accommodation within two days and start teaching immediately. I found the whole arrangements very inconvenient and really stingy. I thought I would find a more hospitable reception in a country like Oman.

After only three days of my arrival in the country, I started teaching at the Rustaq College of Education and I was surprised to find that all my students were female.

This brought back some of my lost enthusiasm. The country, at least, believes in the education of women. I thought I would never find a female student on campus. One peculiar thing about these female students was that they were all dressed in black: black clothes, black veils, black Abayas, as if they were attending a funeral or going to a cemetery!

I was assigned a schedule for teaching the English Language skills to students who were studying other specializations (Arabic, History, Chemistry, Physics, Computer science) to become teachers in primary and secondary schools.

I was happy during the first few years, especially that my students were very polite, friendly, sociable, and very hard-working. I felt these students did have the desire and

motivation to learn and build up a career for themselves in education and serve their country as teachers.

The Department used to be called the “Department of Languages� which consisted of the Arabic Unit and the English Language Unit. After two or three years, the two units were officially split into the Arabic Language Department and the Department of the English Language and Literature. The Ministry also decided that the Department should now offer a B.A. in English in Education in order to provide English Language Teachers for the primary and secondary schools in Oman. The Department would also continue teaching the English Language Skills to the students of the other departments (Arabic, History, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science).

The English Language Teaching program was a very challenging one to be designed and implemented. There was no such program in Oman and there were no syllabi or teaching materials and facilities for teaching. So the Ministry decided to form a Ministerial Committee made up of some English Language specialists from the Ministry and from the existing heads of the English Language Units, who became now heads of the English Language departments. Some of those heads of departments were not specialists in English Language teaching methodology and research and the Ministry did not attempt to get the other specialists into the Committee.

After a year or so, a document for an English Language degree program was handed to us, but there were serious loopholes, shortcomings, and gaps. Being the only specialist in the English Language Teaching Methodology, and Research and have academic qualifications from many reputed U.K. universities and rich experiences in the field, I was assigned the task of designing and writing teaching materials for three courses which the Ministerial Committee was unable to do. These courses were Applied Linguistics, Research Methodology and Statistics, and four Practicum Courses (Practicum 1, Practicum 2, Practicum 3, and Practicum 4). Each course was to consist of two parts: a theoretical part and a practical part dealing with microteaching and actual teaching practice in primary and secondary schools.

I worked day and night for almost two years to do this formidable task and I was handing the Head of the Department each part after it was finished whether it was a course description or a handout for the course The Head of the Department used to send these course descriptions and handouts to the other colleges of education and to the Ministry of Education taking credit for himself for doing them and without mentioning the fact that a Professor in the Department was doing them singlehandedly.

There is another important aspect related to corruption at the Rustaq College of Education in Oman. This concerns the top management of the College. When I started my job at the College, there was a Professor from Jordan as the Dean of the College.

He was a very respectable professor and a dedicated dean. There was a Central

Examination Committee supervising the Final Exams for which half of the total marks of the academic year were allocated.

After a year or two, the Dean left and a new dean was appointed. The New Dean was a Syrian who was also a very respectable professor and a dedicated top executive. He used to welcome all teachers, students, and staff in his office. He was a very polite and open-minded person and used to meet with the teachers, students, and staff in open official meetings for discussion and feedback. The Central Examination Committee continued with its great job of supervising the Final Exams in an efficient and effective way. He expanded the Committee and allocated more space and resources for it to meet all the challenges after the increase in the numbers of students in all departments of the College. Things were going very smoothly and I spent some of the happiest years of my career and my life at Rustaq College.

Said Al Rubaii: A Corrupt Dean and a Crooked Social Climber Then all of a sudden and without any prior information, the excellent Syrian Dean left the College and, as always, we were not told the reasons. A new small-sized man was appointed as a new Dean. This time he was an Omani national. We were not given any information about him nor did he meet with us to introduce himself or to outline his policies and plans. We heard he had just finished his Ph.D. in Something! Nobody knows his specialization and he has never mentioned his specialization in any document. It was also claimed he got his degree from an English-speaking country but in fact, he hardly speaks English and he cannot produce any coherent text in English. He came directly to us from the airport without any experience in management or deanship. They told us that his name is Said bin Hamed bin Said Al Rubaii ‫سعيد بن حمد الربيعى‬, but for all of us, he was a definite article. We were also told he was appointed as Dean even if he did not have a single-day experience because the Ministry had just started to implement a new policy by appointing recent Oman graduates on the top positions of higher education in the country to replace expatriate professors. This policy has proved to be very disastrous and a calamity to higher education in the Sultanate.

Within a month or so, Said Al-Rubaii has proved himself a very impolite person, very arrogant and ignorant. He was extremely stupid and unqualified to run the Rustaq College. He was lacking all the qualities of an academic person and of a human being and started to behave in a very reckless and bestial manner.

The first thing he did was to close the doors of his office and refuse to meet any teacher, student, or staff member for any reason. He canceled the Central Examination Committee and replaced it with a small committee for each department. Because there were not enough teachers for managing and supervising final exams and insufficient resources, big problems started to emerge in almost all the departments.

There was a great deal of forgery and deception at the Rustaq College during the years in which Said Al Rubaii was Dean of the College. There was forgery of students’ grades, employees’ salaries, purchase receipts and documents, teachers’ qualifications, tuition fees, numbers of students at the colleges, HR documents, financial statements, bank accounts, and bonuses. Said Al Rubaii was a corrupt Dean down to his nails. He behaved in a selfish and very unfair and non-academic manner and did exactly the opposite of what His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, the late Sultan of Oman, was saying about honesty and loyalty and the goals of higher education in the Sultanate. It was, therefore, a great shock for us when this unqualified, crooked, and corrupt Dean was promoted to be the Director-General of the Colleges of Education in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman.

Forgery, Deception, Embezzlement The forgery, deception, and corruption started to intensify further after Said Al Rubaii assumed the responsibilities of the Director-General of the Colleges of Education which were transformed later on into Colleges of Applied Sciences. He started to “outsource” the recruitment of the teachers of the Colleges to some “Recruitment Agencies” in return for big bribes (commissions) -- huge sums of money that went directly into his pockets. The Recruitment Agency was charging RO 3,650 (three thousand, six hundred Omani Rials) which is almost $10,000 for each teacher they used to recruit for the Ministry. But, in general, they paid the teacher only OR 800, almost $2000. If we calculate the money being taken illegally from the Ministry, it will amount to millions and millions of dollars every year taking into account the recruitment of thousands of teachers for the Colleges. You can then imagine how much money this crooked Said Al Rubaii has embezzled from the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman.

Things did not stop at this extent of corruption. It went even further. Most of the teachers whom the Recruitment Agencies used to recruit and sent to the departments of English at the Colleges of Education (Applied Sciences) with the approval of Said Al Rubaii and under his direct supervision had nothing to do with English Language Teaching (ELT). They are not specialized in the field of ELT and many of them have “fake degrees” which Said Al Rubaii used to cover-up in his capacity as the DirectorGeneral of the Colleges. One teacher was specialized in Criminology, another in Archology, the third one in History, the fourth one in prostitution! (She had no specialization at all and she used to come almost naked to the department and she used to build up sexual relationships with the teachers and students). This was how Said Al Rubaii used to run the Colleges of Education.

The students of the Colleges and their parents started to talk, complain, and protest against the rotten and miserable situation at the Colleges. So Said Al Rubaii wanted to cheat and deceive them by making changes in top management. He started to

appoint new deans and started to look for new heads of departments. However, he did not want to lose control, so he played a dirty game! What did he do?

New Dean: Mustafa Abdul Baqui Said Al Rubaii appointed, through his recommendations to the Ministry, some of the most unqualified and corrupt people to be Deans for the Colleges of Education (Colleges of Applied Sciences) in order to cover him up and facilitate the continuation of his embezzlement of money from the budget of the Ministry and the budgets of the Colleges. For the Rustaq College of Education (Applied Sciences), he appointed a notoriously corrupt person and a real villain named Mustafa Abdul Baqui – an expatriate hypocrite who had been in the country for more than twenty years. You may never believe what we will write about this villain but it is sufficient to mention a few things about him. This villain used to tell us and tell all those around him that his job as Dean “is to impress the top Omani officials in the Government and the big Sheikhs in the community in order for them to recommend the renewal of his work contract year after year.” Have you ever seen a dean at a college like this villain anywhere in the world? It is no surprise that he was working in Oman for more than 25 years! This is why he would refuse to buy books and other teaching materials for the students and would rather do what would give good impressions about him as a person loyal to the Sultan and the Government of Oman! Complete stupidity and utter nonsense. This is why he stole thousands and thousands of dollars from the budget of the Rustaq College and covered up his theft by spending some of the money in building a big tower in the middle of the Rustaq College with the full approval and complicity of Said Al Rubaii who was then the Director-General of the Colleges. He named the tower the “Renaissance Tower” but people call it “Mustafa Tower” after the first name of the Dean. The tower still exists in the middle of Rustaq College.

Have you ever heard such nonsense and corruption in higher education anywhere in the world?

For lack of time and space, we will mention here the main points about the corruption and incompetence of this villain Mustafa Abdul Baqui when he was Dean of the Rustaq College: 

He was unable to monitor and control teachers’ attendance at their lectures.

Many teachers, especially Omani teachers, used to come and go as they wished. They would skip lectures and go home whenever they wanted. They even used to take absences from work without permission and without informing the Head of the Department in order for him to arrange for prior replacements. This negatively affected students’ learning and education and used to create chaos in the Department. When I became the Head of the English Department, I wanted to stop this nonsense and started to hold these teachers to account for their absences. They would not agree to comply with the regulations of attendance and teaching-load. They would go to the Dean

Mustafa Abdul Baqui and Said Al Rubaii, the Director-General at the Ministry, to put pressure on me. I refused to yield to their pressures. One day, Mustafa Abdul Baqui said to me, “The Minister herself cannot control the Omanis and make them comply with attendance even at the Ministry. Do you want to control them yourself?” This was clear cowardice and serious dereliction of duty on the part of Mustafa Abdul Baqui. 

In the same line of cheating, deception, and corruption, Mustafa Abdul Baqui did not use to care about academic standards, teaching, and real education. He allocated the teaching of the course of Research Methodology and Statistics to a novice lecturer who had no knowledge of the course at all.

The students who failed in the course in the previous year used to explain the materials to the students. The teacher was doing nothing to help or give feedback. H was just a spectator and was paid a large salary for that!

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Mustafa Abdul Baqui used to refuse to buy new textbooks to the students and he gave his instructions to have all the textbooks “photocopied” by the departments of the College. This is illegal and an ugly form of academic piracy in higher education. He used to tell us that this “procedure” was approved by Said Al Rubaii in order to save money for the Ministry.

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He used to spend most of his time in trivial meetings with nothing serious to be discussed or talked about. He used to waste the time of the teachers and the heads of the academic departments in an unbelievable way. In the official meeting of the College Council on 8 March 2010, he allocated only one minute to the Head of the English Department for discussing the affairs of the department in spite of the fact that the English Department was the largest department at the College and there were more than fifty teachers with various specializations. Have you heard of such nonsense?

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He used to accept any teacher sent to him by Said Al Rubaii even if they have no academic qualifications or their specializations have nothing to do with the College of Education (Applied Sciences). Many of these specializations have nothing to do with the English department, either.

First Head of English Department (Mr. B.B.) The first Head of the English Department was a very wicked person He was a rogue and a real villain- no less than Said Al Rubaii and Mustafa Abdul Baqui: “Birds of a feather flock together”. He used to spend most of his time chatting with female students in his office. He was timid and a coward. He used to be insulted by the Omani teachers and Western teachers almost every day. The most damaging thing he did to the College and to education was to deceive the students and Ministry by his dishonest “style of teaching”! He used to divide the students of the class into groups

and distribute the chapters of the textbook among the groups. Each lecture, one group will do what he called “Presentation” which, in fact, has nothing to do with a presentation in the academic sense of the term. He used to sit at the back of the class during this “presentation” reading and checking the official post until the end of the lecture. He did not use to teach anything or give feedback or do anything. Have you heard of this “University Teaching” style invented by this crooked person? In order to cover-up this cheating and deception, he told some Omani teachers to do the same!

The students complained to the Dean, Mustafa Abdul Baqui, and the Ministry, but they did not do anything to stop this nonsense. Instead of holding this villain to account or punishing him or terminating his work contract, Said Al Rubaii promoted him to the position of Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs for three years and then renewed his work contract for another three years. Then Said Al Rubaii facilitated for this villain to join the Oman Academic Accreditation Authority (OAAA) as an external reviewer though he is empty-headed and had never done a good job at teaching and research. He has never published a single research paper in any respectable academic journal. This is the sort of corruption Said Al Rubaii had been doing in the Ministry of higher education while the Minister is fast asleep!

New Head of the English Department Things were getting worse and worse every day at the English department and Rustaq College. A decision was taken by the Ministry to have new heads of departments.

These new heads should have high academic qualifications and rich experience in teaching, research, and coordination of courses. For the English department, the College Council selected me to be the new Head of the English Department.

The first thing I did when I took over as the new Head of the English Department was to stop the chaos and nonsense being created by some Omani teachers at the Department. As I have already said, some of them used to go home very early (sometimes at 10 a.m.) skipping lectures without informing me. I used to call them and they used to give “childish” and “irresponsible replies: “I have a headache”, “My son is sick.”, “My husband is not feeling well; he is in bed so I want to stay with him.” One of the Omani teachers absented herself without permission for three days without informing me and without telling us where she was. We could not contact her because she switched off her cell phone. Have you ever heard such garbage excuses from teachers skipping lectures and keeping students waiting in the classrooms? I used to inform Mustafa Abdul Baqui, the Dean, about these things. He was a coward like the first head of the English Department. He would do nothing. He would say to me, “Leave the Omani teachers to do whatever they want if you want to stay on your job.”

The first head of the English Department felt insulted after I replaced him as the new Head of the English Department and acted like a gangster. He would go around the English Department inciting the teachers against me and would go around the Rustaq

College telling the teachers and the members of the administrative staff that he would not let me stay on the job for more than a week! He was too wicked but I was too strong for him. I used to stop his nonsense and I used to report him to the Dean in writing. He even went further. He absented himself from the English Department for a week together with the “Islamic” teacher without either of them telling me anything or sending me anything. So I formally reported them to the Dean as would any Head of Department would do. After a few days, it turned out that Said Al Rubaii had invited them to the Ministry without informing me. They claimed to have been attending a conference although this attendance should have been approved by me as the Head of the English department so that I could arrange for substitutes to attend their lectures with the students.

I was tough but not rough. I was able to control everything and stop all the nonsense and chaos that went for so long in the English Department. But Mustafa Abdul Baqui, the Dean, and Said Al Rubaii, the Director-General, were the biggest problem. They continued illegally sending me unqualified teachers recruited by the Recruitment Agencies who were bribing both of them. This was creating too many problems with the students as they would come to me many times every day complaining about these teachers and how they were learning nothing from them.

There was an Omani teacher with us and I had always pitied her, but I had to formally report her situation to the Dean and the Director-General. She had mental problems and almost a complete loss of memory. She would skip lectures as she wanted, she would absent herself from the department for days, she would submit unreasonable grades for the students without giving them any exams, tests, or assignments. Her situation was deteriorating fast so I wrote a detailed memo to the Dean hoping he would, at least, understand the gravity of the situation and take action. He submitted my memo to Said Al Rubaii, the Director-General. I was shocked at the reply from them. “Leave her to do what she wants. Do not interfere with her situation. But give her a teaching schedule like the other teachers.”! This was really disgusting and very unacceptable to me. The HR department in the Ministry had always counted her as a teacher in the Department to do a teaching job in all of its tasks efficiently and with competence. Both the Dean and the Director-General knew about her situation but would do nothing to solve her problem though the solution was very simple: she should be treated in a mental hospital and there was a good mental hospital in Muscat. I found it extremely difficult to accept their response or comprehend it. So I contacted the Director-General to enquire and ask for an explanation. The answer, again, was very unreasonable and impolite. He told me, “I know everything.” I replied, “But you did nothing to solve the problem!”. He just switched off his cell phone leaving me wondering what sort of a human being he is!

The situation was getting dire and worse by the day. So I wrote a written memo to Dr. Rawiya Al-Busaidi, the Minister of Higher Education, on 20 March 2010 hoping she would take action and put an end to this miserable situation in the English Department

and Rustaq College. After more than a month, I received no reply. Everything was “quiet on the Western front”! So I went to the Ministry and talked to the Secretary of the Minister. I told her about my written memo and enquired if I could see the Minister herself. She told me the Minister “is always busy and cannot see anyone”.

This is not true. It applies only to expatriate teachers and professors; the Omani teachers can easily see the Minister or any top official in the Ministry whenever they want. This is clear racism and discrimination. But the Secretary did me a favor by giving me some information about my memo. She told me the Minister had taken a decision to form up an Investigation Committee to look into my memo and investigate the issues raised in it. The Investigation Committee was to be headed

by Al-Khattab Al-Kindi, one of the Advisors of the Minister. I was a little relieved that at last there would be someone from the top looking into the miserable situation created by Mustafa Abdul Baqui and Said Al-Rubaii.

Almost two months passed without any result. Then all of a sudden a letter signed

by Said Al Rubaii came to the Rustaq College terminating my work contract and the work contracts of about 36 professors of the College. So Said Al Rubaii resorted to the familiar corrupt technique followed by most Omani corrupt officials in order to conceal facts and get rid of those who may dare expose them or challenge them.

I went to the Ministry to see what had happened and to enquire about the Investigation Committee. I met Al-Khattab Al-Kindi and asked why he did not investigate. He replied, “because your work contract has been terminated”! This is then the dirty game. This is how Said Al Rubaii and other top officials in higher education in Oman do. They just terminate the work contract of the expatriate professors and teachers to avoid their corruption being exposed to the public.

I tried once more to contact Said Al Rubaii and enquire about the whole thing though I knew very well he was behind all the corruption, dirty techniques, and nasty conspiracies being common in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman. So I called him and enquired from him. He told me that he was angry about my memo to the Minister of Higher Education and it was the reason for the termination of my contract!

I told him I was just doing my job and I was after the genuine interests of the students and the department and it was part of my job to write the memo. He asked me to write another memo to him to explain everything. I did write another memo giving more details and went to see him in his office in the Directorate-General of the Colleges. I arrived at his Secretary’s office in mid-morning and asked him if I could see the Director-General, Said Al Rubaii after I told him about the purpose of my visit. The man went into Said Al Rubaii’s office and stayed there for a while. I could hear that he was talking or arguing with Said Al Rubaii. Then he came out and told me that Said Al Rubaii did not want to meet me. Can you believe such arrogance from the Director-General who should show respect to his professors and Heads of Departments in the Colleges he is supposed to manage and lead?

Going to Sultan Qaboos All the doors of the top officials in the Ministry of Higher education were closed before me. All of them behaved like “mafia bosses’’ not leaders of higher education. I was left with no option but to try to go to the first leader of Oman: His Majesty, Sultan Qaboos, the then Sultan of Oman. So I wrote a memo explaining everything and went to hand it to Sultan Qaboos at Al-Alam Palace in Muscat.

When I arrived at Al-Alam Palace, I did not see anyone outside the Palace. I did not see guards, soldiers, plain-cloth officers, or security men. I did not see tanks and artillery stationed outside the Palace to protect the Sultan from his people as you would see with most of the Arab kings and rulers. I was really impressed. But I wanted to make sure that the Palace was not abandoned so I asked an Omani passerby who told me that there are always some officials inside. So I went to the gate and a guard opened it to me and let me in. They asked me about the purpose of my visit and I explained it to them. They contacted some people inside and an official came and led me into an office with a number of people working there. I was offered a cup of coffee and the man asked me a number of questions. He wrote down my replies on a printed form and I gave him some details. He then told me they will take up the issue and investigate. Some months passed and I heard nothing. Then I heard from someone at the Rustaq College that my request to His Majesty, Sultan Qaboos was sent to the Ministry and a copy was sent to the Rustaq College. This is truly a disaster! How do they expect the same corrupt people against whom we wrote a memo to His Majesty to investigate and do justice to those they themselves have wronged and taken away their rights? There is something completely wrong with this mechanism. It is a vicious circle. The investigation should have been done by the officials of the Royal Diwan (court) themselves.

Dr. Rawiya bint Saood Al Busaidi: Minister of Higher Education Like most Arab ministers, the Minister of Higher Education in Oman has surrounded herself with advisors and consultants, most of whom are incompetent, corrupt, and opportunists. They tell her what they want her to know and only what is in their personal gains and interests. So she knows little or nothing about what goes on in the Ministry or the higher education institutions. She never communicates directly with the students and teachers. She is content with what the top officials in the private colleges and university would tell her directly or in documents most of which are false and fabricated. Her approach is clearly faulty and a complete failure. The lady is incompetent and cannot fight corruption as those corrupt officials like Said Al Rubaii and Abdullah Al Sarmi around her. Said Al Rubaii and Abdullah Al Sarmi are wolves and real villains. She cannot stand up to their corruption, fraud, and thievery.

She is either too nice or too weak. You need someone far more powerful and stronger to stand up against corruption and face wolves and wild dogs like Said Al Rubaii, Mustafa Abdul Baqui, Abood Al-Sawafi, and Hamed Al-Hajri.

Dr. Rawiya’s approach to running the Ministry of Higher Education is completely outdated; it belongs to the Middle Ages! She relies almost entirely on a large number of advisors and consults who hold contradictory views, concepts, and interests most of the time. She also relies on documents and information given to the Ministry by the officials of the colleges and universities whether in the public sector or private sector.

Most of the information is false and most of the documents are fabricated and have nothing to do with reality. She is completely “detached from reality”! She should contact the teachers and students directly and get truthful information from them.

She has surrounded herself with a huge number of advisors and consultants and has closed her doors to expatriate professors and heads of departments. The lady is closed-minded and lives in an “ivory tower” like most top officials in Oman and the Arab world. This is not the way to run a Ministry of Higher Education in the twentyfirst century.

I officially met Dr. Rawiya on a number of occasions in the Ministry of Higher Education and in A’Sharqiyah University in Oman when the University was struggling to start up. She insisted on a number of things that were necessary for any higher education institution. But she did not follow them up nor did the University.

The last time I officially met her was during her visit to A’Sharqiyah University in October 2015 after many complaints to the Ministry about the number of courses to be offered to the students during the Academic Year 2009-2010. Abood AlSawafi (former VC) and Hamed Al-Hajri (Assistant VC) were offering very few courses within the students’ majors and were offering mostly optional courses to cheat students of time and money and to avoid appointing professors on certain specializations necessary for obligatory courses. This is a familiar way of cheating and deception by Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamed Al-Hajri and other corrupt officials in higher education in Oman.

During the meeting, we expected her to talk about these courses and the real problems facing the teachers and the students at A’Sharqiyah University. She did not. Instead, she talked, in very general terms, about the importance of higher education, which is a familiar topic for her and for us. Then Abood Al- Sawafi and Hamed Al Hajri arranged, in a very cunning way, for a digital show of A’Sharqiyah new campus for which the University received the total sum of more than US$90 million from both the Government of Oman and the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman, but it hardly cost US$23 million! The man conducting the show was stupid and arrogant.

He was very proud of the new campus and was talking in detail about the luxury of the new campus and the spacious offices being built with so many facilities for the Vice-Chancellor as if they were building a “palace” for the Vice-Chancellor not an academic campus for the teachers and students. Dr. Rawiya was embarrassed and said, in a very sarcastic tone, “This is a very humble office”! I was getting sick of the whole thing: the show and the meeting. This is real corruption and cover-up at the highest level.

Dr. Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Sarmi: The Undersecretary I have always looked at Abdullah Al Sarmi as a ‘real clown” – a man without integrity and without a sense of duty and humanity. He is one of the most corrupt higher education top officials in Oman and the world. When you talk to him, he looks at you in a stupid, sheepish way. He has nothing to offer higher education anything in Oman or elsewhere. I went to see him many, many times and I always wanted to discuss important academic issues with him, but every time I went to his office, he was unavailable to meet anyone. But then you see a “group” of businessmen and representatives of various companies coming leaving his office and another “group” coming to see him. This would last for hours and hours. I had never seen a professor, a teacher, an academic, or a student coming in or leaving. This saga is repeated every day. So I asked his Secretary (they call the Secretary “Coordinator” in Oman) about what was going on. The Coordinator (a small, very young man, just a little older than a boy, in a dishdasha) told me that “the Undersecretary always meets businessmen and company representatives during the day. He does not have enough time to meet all of them, so he meets them in the evenings at some hotels in Muscat.”

When he gave me the names of the hotels, I found out they are among the most famous and luxurious hotels in Oman. Bravo, Mr. Abdulla Al Sarmi for your corruption and “great services for business”!

The Undersecretary of the Ministry has taken advantage of the situation at the Ministry and has always acted as the real minister. He is very corrupt and incompetent.

Corrupt businessmen and officials in the Ministry do not believe in transparency; they favor and encourage hypocrisy in the organization. This is Abdullah Al-Sarmi’s favorite game. He does not possess any leadership qualities and therefore cannot rule through transparency which he regards as a great danger to him. He never gives you any information about his activities or dealings with the businessmen. Simply put, he is good for nothing.

Said bin Hamed bin Said Al Rubaii Al-Raubai: Director-General of Colleges Said Al Rubaii is one of the most corrupt top officials in Oman and the Middle East.

He is a real rogue and worse than a villain. He is a big liar, a cheat, and a dishonest person more than his close friend, Abood Al- Sawafi of A’Sharqiyah University in Oman.

Said Al-Rubai has been given a ‘blank check’ to be corrupt the way he likes without any consideration for any code of work ethics or moral values or without anyone holding him to account. This is why he used to behave in a reckless and ruthless way against the teachers and students as he mistakenly believes he is absolutely above the law.

Said Al Rubaii has indulged in a very unprofessional behavior of deception, cheating, and lying, especially to the top officials in Oman and the Ministry of Higher Education. He never gives correct and accurate information to the Ministry of Higher Education, nor does he respect any teacher or student. This is why he has the reputation of being ruthless, corrupt, and a big thief. For him, work ethics and the qualities of honesty, fairness, and justice do not exist in his dictionary or in his life or in the workplace.

Said Al Rubaii is a real beast who should not be trusted with public duty in any way. Like his close friend, Abood Al-Sawafi of A’Sharqiyah University, he is prepared to harm and destroy anyone who stands on his way of corruption, thievery, fraud, and deception. He does not care about any laws, bylaws, charters, or regulations in any public or private institution. He has always put himself “above the law” because he has bizarre impunity from prosecution! He is not held to account by anyone for anything illegal or harmful he has done to any individual or institution or even the country. Said Al Rubaii does not care about what is honest and what is dishonest, what is legal, and what is illegal. Never have I seen before such a reckless, disrespectful, and rogue top official in any ministry of higher education anywhere in the world. He can do whatever he likes and can steal money in different ways from the companies and institutions in the public or private sector without being held accountable by anyone. Bravo, Mr. Said Al Rubaii. You and your Ministry of Higher Education should be ashamed of yourselves. I will briefly summarize some of the corruption information about Said Al Rubaii: 

Said Al Rubaii has got a fake degree

Said Al Rubaii has never mentioned his Ph.D. specialization in any public document or any website nor has he mentioned the name of the university from which he has got his Ph.D. There was a brief profile for him on LinkedIn where he mentioned he had a Ph. D., without mentioning the name of the university. When I exposed Abood AlSawafi’s corruption and his fake Ph.D., Said Al Rubaii went to his LinkedIn profile and deleted it. I have been watching him and chasing him for years. Abood Al-Sawafi and Said Al Rubaii are close friends. Abood Al-Sawafi used to tell me a lot of things about Said Al Rubaii. I concluded from the information he was giving me that both of them are very superficial, stupid, crooked, corrupt, and have nothing to do with the academic world.

I met Said Al Rubaii when he was appointed Dean of the Rustaq College of Education in Oman. He was a little man, small-sized in both body and mind. He had no experience in management and was reckless, careless, and dull. I worked with him for a few months at Rustaq College and found him very incompetent, impolite, and indifferent to students’ interests and their education. One of the most striking things about him is his inability to produce one small coherent text in Arabic, let alone in English.

But let us be fair with the man. Let him mention his Ph.D. specialization and the name of the university from which he has got his degree in public documents or websites and let us check. I can surely say that his degree is definitely fake; it is not authentic.

Said Al Rubaii claims he has written many books on education and knowledge. This is completely false and fabricated. I have checked the Internet and found a mention of three books in Arabic, not English. Two of these books carry the names of other authors on the cover. Only one book has the name Said Al Rubaii. These books prove, without doubt, that Said Al Rubaii is a corrupt official. These books have been written for him by “opportunist” expatriate teachers or academics in return for the renewals of their work contracts or in return for money or other favors as Said Al Rubaii has been in actual control of everything in the Ministry of Higher Education and can offer a lot.

I know two teachers in the Rustaq English Department who used to go too often to meet and work with Said Al Rubaii in the Ministry. They were expatriate teachers well-known for their opportunism and hypocrisy. One of them was the first head of the English Language department mentioned above; the other was the “Islamist” teacher whom Said Al Rubaii illegally transferred from the Ibri College.

The other thing in this story of books written by Said Al Rubaii is that he and the other authors admit that the books are a “translation and Arabization” which means he and the others with him have written nothing. They have just translated the books and when they did not understand something, they wrote it in their style in Arabic. This is what they call Arabization! Bravo, Mr. Said Al Rubaii for your cheating and deception. 

Said Al Rubaii takes bribes from everyone

Said Al Rubaii takes bribes from as many people as he can deceive. He takes bribes from teachers, students, investors, and even the bus drivers who sign contracts with Colleges of Education (Applied Sciences) to transfer students from the Colleges to the schools where they practice their practicum lessons and fieldwork.

One day, I received an official request and documents from a teacher at Ibri College.

The teacher wanted to get a transfer to the Rustaq College of Education, as the Rustaq College is nearer than Ibri to Muscat, the capital city of Oman. The request and the documents were referred to me for an academic opinion in my capacity as the academic coordinator of the English Language department. I went through the teacher’s academic profile and educational qualifications, I found him unfit to be transferred to the Rustaq English Department. His specialization is in Islamic Studies, his education degrees and certificates are from an Islamic University; so I recommended the rejection of his request. But after a few months, we were shocked to see him joining our English Department to teach many courses in English although his specialization is in Islamic studies and his English is very week. After a while, we

heard he paid a big bribe to Said Al Rubaii, the Director-General of the Colleges in the Ministry. 

Said Al Rubaii is immoral and practices prostitution

One of the teachers recruited for the Rustaq English department by a Recruitment Agency, which Said Al Rubaii used to deal with and take bribes from, claimed to have an M.Sc. in Statistics in addition to an M.A. in English. Both of his degrees were fake. I met him and asked him a few questions about Statistics and about the course of Research Methodology and Statistics which we used to teach in the English Department for our would-be teachers of English. I found him completely “emptyheaded”; he knows nothing about statistics or about the course. So I told the Head of the English department (Mr. B.B.) about him, but he did not take action because he is a coward and he himself is not qualified to teach many courses in the department as his specialization is theoretical linguistics not Applied linguistics. He was also a coward who could not stand up to the corruption of Said Al Rubaii. He told me that this teacher’s recruitment was approved by Said Al Rubaii.

In spite of my warning to the Head of the English Department, this crooked teacher was assigned to teach the Course of Research Methodology and Statistics to third-year students of the Department. After a few lectures, the students burst into a “rebellion” against him and against the Head of the department. He was spending his time talking about his life story and his adventures with women and arranging for “sexual dates” with some female students. He was analyzing the morphology of these words in a very sick and immoral way due to his morbid mentality. One of these words was the English word “assume” which he analyzed to the students in the classroom into three components: “ass”, “you” (u), and “me” (m). Have you ever heard of such immoral teaching of statistics anywhere in the world?

Whenever a female teacher or student had a difficult problem to solve, legal or illegal, she was strongly advised to go to Said Al Rubaii in his office in the Ministry to solve it for her. This was common knowledge about Said Al Rubaii in the Colleges of Education and then the Colleges of Applied Sciences. Bravo, Mr. Said Al Rubaii for your corruption and prostitution! 

Said Al Rubaii is corrupt to his nails

In the second semester of the Academic Year 2009-2010, a letter signed by Said Al Rubaii came to the Rustaq College of Applied Sciences terminating the work contracts of about 36 professors of the College. They were among the best and most respected professors in higher education in Oman. They had high academic credentials and rich experiences in their fields of specialization. They were given no reason or explanation for why their work contracts were terminated. The Rustaq College was in a terrible need of their services and academic qualifications and

experiences. This termination came to be known in Rustaq as Said Al Rubaii’s massacre. It was really a massacre in higher education in every sense of the word. Said Al Rubaii was after one thing: how to fill his pockets with bribes from the Recruitment Agencies in Oman and from individual teachers who used to approach him individually for appointment in the Colleges.

You just do not know why and who has given Said Al Rubaii these powers. He has always acted like a thug, a bully, and a mafia boss. He does not care about any laws, bylaws, charters, or regulations. He has always put himself “above the law” and he has bizarre impunity! He has always exploited his position in the Ministry for selfish, wicked, and personal gains. He is not held accountable by anyone for anything illegal or harmful he has done to the Ministry and its reputation.

Supervision or Cover-up?

One of the most important jobs of the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman is to supervise how the private colleges and universities in Oman are managed, especially in the area of quality of education and the academic aspects of these institutions in addition to the public institutions. This is one of the legal responsibilities of the Ministry. Regrettable, the Ministry has been doing almost nothing in this role and has always given “blank checks” to the private higher education institutions to do whatever they want regardless of their charters and in violation of all academic and administrative regulations and directives set up by the Ministry for these institutions.

We have seen very little or nothing of this supervision; we have seen too much coverup! This is absolute corruption in the strict sense of the term.

For lack of space and time, I will focus on some of the issues where I think there is a complete failure by the Ministry of Higher Education in its role of supervision of private colleges and universities. I will deal with these issues in detail in another article.

Teachers' Strike There was a strike by teachers and members of staff at a private university in Oman in 2016 because they were not paid their salaries for months, as the picture with this article shows. There was a lot of damage inflicted on the students and teachers. We expected the Minister to say something serious about those responsible for the “shortage” or “embezzlement” of funds, but she said nothing. She should have held them to account, but she did nothing. She just allocated more money from the budget of the Ministry or the National budget to save the top officials of that university!

I sent her many memos and have written many articles about corruption at A’Sharqiyah University, but she did nothing to hold Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamed Al-

Hajri to account though they have embezzled millions of dollars from the university and have inflicted unbelievable damages on the University’s academic programs, reputation, and students’ future.

Corruption at A’Sharqiyah University in Oman A’Sharqiyah University in Oman represents nowadays one of the most outrageous cases of corruption in higher education in the world. But the Ministry of Higher Education has not taken any steps or measures to stop this corruption because of personal ties between Abood Al-Sawafi, the corrupt A’Sharqiyah VC, Hamed AlHajri, his Assistant VC, and Said Al Rubaii and other officials in the Ministry. I will mention here some of the points of corruption the Ministry has failed to deal with: 1. There has been a binding agreement between the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman and the University of A’Sharqiyah as a higher education provider. The agreement was signed between the two parties some years ago. As per this agreement, all the textbooks and other teaching and learning materials (e.g. workbooks) to be used by the teachers and students in the Foundation Program must be new and original. The costs of these textbooks and materials are included within the tuition fees and are paid in full by the Ministry for each and every student sponsored by the Ministry as per the system of “internal scholarships” according to which most of the Omani school-leavers are admitted to higher education institutions in Oman. This means that these textbooks belong legally to the students sponsored by the Ministry and they have the legal rights to keep them after their study in the Foundation Program has finished. The same applies to self-sponsored students. But the VC, Abood Al-Sawafi, and his Assistant VC, Hamad Al-Hajri have been refusing to buy new textbooks and they insist on retrieving the used books from the students.

2. There used to be eight books on each level of the three levels of the Foundation Program. The books were attractively designed and professionally written by native speakers of English and were published by some of the most respected international publishers: Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Longman, Pearson, Blackwell, and others. The Foundation Program itself was academically and effectively designed as per the International Standards for the Foundation Programs and in line with Oman Academic Council (OAC) and Oman Academic Accreditation Authority (OAAA). But in a very stupid move and out of greed, incompetence and corruption, Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamad Al-Hajri illegally and without the approval of the Ministry canceled the original Foundation Program and replaced it with one book and a number of handouts without any connection between them and without any strategic goals or objectives.

3. As we have said above, Abood Al-Sawafi, the VC of A’Sharqiyah University, and Hamad Al-Hajri, his Assistant VC have been refusing to buy new textbooks for the Foundation Program students in spite of the fact that they receive the costs of the

books from the Ministry and from the self-sponsored students. By all definitions and criteria, this is a theft during the light of the day. They are receiving the cost of the books but they are not buying any! Instead, they instruct the teachers in the Foundation Program to use the same copies of the books year after year. This has been going on for many years and because of the repeated re-use, the books have become very old, worn-out, and unsuitable for teaching and learning. All the exercises in the books had been solved by former students so the new students do not find these exercises challenging or useful for learning English as the exercises contain all the answers. This has been one of the reasons for the deteriorating level of learning English in the Foundation Program in A’Sharqiyah University and the underachievement of the students in the academic studies in the colleges.

The students filed many complaints about these old textbooks as they are not learning anything. In order to stop these complaints, Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamad Al-Hajri distributed erasers to the teachers of the Foundation Program and asked them to rub out the written answers to the exercises! Have you ever heard such nonsense in a university in the world? The VC and Assistant VC of the university distribute erasers to the teachers and ask them to rub out the old books like children! So the teachers have become cleaners of old books. The teachers find it very insulting and very degrading but anyone voicing any dissent will be shown the door. Is this really a university?

4. There are many documents certifying that there are a lot of questions about the huge sums of money A’Sharqiyah University has received as grants and no one knows where the money has gone. The University received the sum of RO17 million (seventeen million Omani Rials) (more than US$40 million) from the Government of Oman (document: A’Sharqiyah University Annual Report in Arabic 2014 p.32) and received the sum of RO 20 million (more than US$50 million) from the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman (document: A’Sharqiyah University Annual Report in English 2014 p.25). This means the University has received the total sum of more than US$90 million from both the Government of Oman and the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman. Where has all this money gone?! We do not find any official document in the University telling us how this huge sum of money has been spent or is going to be spent! The most we find is some information (in Arabic) in the University Calendar telling us that the University will build a new campus for the cost of RO 23 million (about US$50 million) and the new campus will take 18 months. The campus was more than three years overdue and the workers and engineers used to go often on strike for working without pay as the University did not pay the construction companies their dues and debts. But even with the new campus, there is still the sum of more than 40 million US dollars which we do not know where it has gone! We may put these questions to the former VC, Abood Al-Sawafi, his Assistant VC for Administration and Finance, Hamad Al-Hajri, and to the corrupt Sheikh Abdullah bin Suleiman bin Hamed Al-Harthi, the Chairman of the Board of Directors. These three are among

the most corrupt officials in the University and in Oman. They make up a “gang of thieves” with the Internal Auditor and Quality Assurance Officer. We may also put our questions to the Board of Directors and Board of Trustees who are no less corrupt than them. We have heard that these people are very powerful and influential in Oman and that is why they are above the law! I am not bothered or concerned about that. I am concerned about why the Ministry has failed or has been too reluctant to take action and stop corruption at A’Sharqiyah University.

5. There is another aspect of corruption that has been going on in some higher education institutions like A’Sharqiyah University. This is related to the number of students in these institutions and the tuition fees they charge. There has always been a wide discrepancy between the real numbers of students at A’Sharqiyah University and the “fabricated and inflated” numbers for whom the university charges tuition fees. For example, if the real number of new students in the Foundation Program is one thousand, the university will greatly “inflate” this number and will charge the Ministry for the inflated number! How could they do that?

Regrettably, there are corrupt officials in the Ministry of Higher Education itself and they have been covering up corruption for personal gains and personal ties with Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamed Al-Hajri.

There is a great deal more about this corruption and the Ministry’s cover-up. I will deal with it in another article.

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Sexual Harassment: Sex-for-Grades

Fighting sexual harassment is a necessity and a great challenge everywhere in the world and in all sorts of organizations, especially in higher education institutions where we do not find any mechanism or system to help the victims to speak up without having to pay a very heavy price. Regrettably, this applies in a frightening way to many colleges and universities in Oman where some female students are being subjected to sexual harassment or sexual exploitation by some pervert and sick teachers and managers who trade “sex for grades”, “sex for exams” and “sex for favors”. The Ministry has never put in place a reliable mechanism to prevent sexual harassment or sexual exploitation before it happens nor is there any mechanism to hold those who commit this harassment to account.

What is worse than this is the bitter fact that there are strict laws with severe punishments for anyone or any writer who dares write about sexual harassment or sexual exploitation or dares expose pervert people whether you mention their names or not.

Racism and Fascism

There are many aspects of racism and fascism in higher education in Oman.

Surprisingly, the Ministry itself is the source of so much of this racism and fascism. I will briefly deal here with some of these aspects: 

Scales of Salaries

The first thing that may cause a great shock to any academic or objectively-minded person joining the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman is that there are two scales of salaries: one scale for Omanis and another one for non-Omanis (expatriates). The scale for Omanis is a great deal higher than the one for no-Omanis. This is the first indicator of racism in the Ministry of Higher Education. Although you may have higher academic qualifications and more experience and you work harder, you get a lower salary. When you go and ask them, you are shocked to hear: “This is our country, not your country. This is what we can offer you. You can leave if you do not like it”. Absolute racism! This is illegal because the Oman Labor Law requires the institution, company, or establishment to post in a conspicuous place a unified scale of salaries and wages for all employees and workers (Omanis and non-Omanis). But the Ministry and all higher education institutions in Oman do not do that. 

Academic Promotion and Conferences

The regulations of the Ministry stipulate that only Omani teachers are eligible for academic promotion; the expatriate teachers are not. The same applies to the attendance of academic workshops, symposia, and conferences inside and outside of the country.

The Ministry, the college, or the university would pay for all the fees and expenses to attend academic symposia and conferences if you are an Omani teacher or academic, but you have to pay from your pocket if you are non-Omani. This is another indicator of racism in higher education in Oman.

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Work Contracts

Most people believe that the work contract represents the basic contractual relationship between the employee and the employer. The work contract must, therefore, be written in a clear, understandable, and measurable language as it is legally binding for both parties and must not be ambiguous. It must also be consistent with local and international labor laws and in line with universal human values and work ethics. As per the international labor laws, the employee needs to have the work contract written in a language acceptable to the courts of law of the specific country and also a version written in a language the employee speaks and understands.

Competent and qualified employees expect to stay on the job for a few years, especially if they have a family, as long as they are doing their jobs satisfactorily as per their work contract and the official directives, instructions, and regulations. They never expect their stay on the job to be dependent on their personal relationships with the Head of the Department or the Director-General or dependent upon an opinion here or there in official meetings or informal gatherings. They also expect to see some logic or to be given some explanation as to why their work contract has been terminated or will not be renewed for the following year. What happens in the Ministry of Higher Education and in all private colleges and universities in Oman is beyond logic or belief and everything is well-documented in the files and archives of the Human Resources Department of the Ministry.

When employees sign a work contract with a company, a college, a university, or another sort of organization, they expect that their contract will be renewed on the basis of satisfactory performance and the needs for their services. They do not expect the senior managers to use the renewals of contract as a “vicious weapon� against them and against anyone who disagrees with them or stands on their way of corruption, thievery, and fraud. They also do not expect these senior managers to renew the work contracts of bad and incompetent teachers and employees in return for sex or bribes as Said Al Rubaii has been doing for many years in the Ministry of Higher Education in his capacity as the Director-General of the Colleges of Education (Applied Sciences). Many deans and senior managers in private colleges and universities have also been doing the same encouraged by the practices of the Ministry itself. This is all done against the genuine interests of the students and the quality of education. Being professionals, we take it for granted that we do not work for individuals. We work for our college or university or organization in an honest and dedicated manner. Hence; our loyalty is for our organization with which we have signed the work contract. The loyalty can never be for the direct or indirect boss who may be an incompetent, reckless, and corrupt senior manager like Said Al Rubaii.

On the other hand, when our work contract is not renewed for any reason, we have the right to be informed of these reasons. To ask your senior management about the reasons and they refuse to tell you, you are left in no doubt that these managers are unprofessional, inept, and cowards. They do not deserve we work with them and do not deserve any mercy from us. Our subsequent actions will be largely determined by these bitter feelings.

The renewals and non-renewals of work contracts have become a nasty weapon for corruption in the Ministry of Higher Education and in many companies, higher education institutions, and other organizations. Many corrupt and wicked senior managers like Said Al Rubaii, Abood Al-Sawafi, and Hamed Al-Hajri abuse their powers and authorization. They use the work contracts as a vicious and merciless tool to suppress anyone who stands on their way of forgery, fraud, thievery, and deception.

It is a cynical tool used by cynical corrupt senior managers encouraged by the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman. 

Expatriate Family Education

Most of the expatriate professors and teachers bring their families to live with them in Oman after they have settled in their jobs. This includes professors, teachers, and academics in public and private higher education institutions. The Ministry does not pay a single penny for the education of anyone in the family, especially when they join a college or a university for their higher education. This has proved a big burden on the budget of the expatriate teacher: they give him money on the right hand and they take it from him on the left hand. The big problem (and it may be a real disaster) is when the Ministry or the private college or university terminates the work contract of the father and asks him to leave the country while his son or daughter is in the middle of the school year or the study program. When you try to make them understand that this is to jeopardize the future of your son or daughter, they would tell you to your face: “This is your problem, not our problem.” They even refuse to give you an extension to stay with your son or daughter and they will chase you through the police and public prosecutors who do not care about your family and are prepared to deport you or smash you.

This is what we call fascism. For interesting information and viewpoints, see Jason Stanley’s book, “How Fascism Works”. Jason Stanley is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University.

Zero Mechanisms Like most of the countries of the Middle East, Oman has no independent agencies or non-governmental organizations to which you can report corruption without fear of retaliation from corrupt people. All the existing agencies and organizations are formed by the governments and supervised by them. They are there not to sincerely fight corruption but just to report those who may criticize the governments or the top officials. The public does not have trust in the anti-corruption commissions or agencies widely publicized by the governments and local newspapers because they know these commissions and agencies are really traps to catch anyone who challenges the status quo or they exist only as a formality to persuade the public and international investors that the government is really serious in its fight against corruption. You can hardly find any international organization or commission within or outside the UN which works against corruption freely and independently in Oman or in the Middle East. All of these countries claim that the work of such organizations is “interference into their own internal affairs”. This is utter nonsense. These organizations greatly help in eliminating, or at least reducing, corruption when it exists. So why are the governments and businessmen afraid and do not want independent anti-corruption

commissions and agencies in their countries if they are clean and do not have anything to hide?!

Corruption persists in higher education in Oman because corrupt people are “protected” by the public prosecutors who fear them and never dare to investigate their corruption, fraud, and thievery. Corrupt officials and senior executives can do whatever they like and can steal money in different ways from the public sector or the private sector companies and institutions without being held accountable to anyone.

They control almost everything in their companies and organization as they control the two most important functions: administration and finance; though these two functions differ from one institution to another in terms of size and scope. They also control, to a surprising degree, the public prosecutors everywhere in the country.

These prosecutors would turn against anyone who submits any corruption documents or try to file complaints against corrupt figures in the public or private sector. When I reported the corruption of Abood Al-Sawafi (former VC of A’Sharqiyah University) to Saif Al-Saltti, the Deputy Public Prosecutor in Ibra, Oman, he shamelessly said to me, “I am not concerned about the corruption of Abood Al-Sawafi; I am concerned about whether Abood Al-Sawafi has been insulted or not.” Imagine that! Can we really fight corruption with such a corrupt public prosecutor?!

Arab Spring 2011: Omanis are against Corruption Only a very tiny minority of Omanis do not care about corruption. They think that they cannot fight corruption as the corrupt people are too powerful and too influential to be controlled or defeated. These corrupt people are themselves members of the Government, the powerful Sheikhs, the rich businessmen, and the top officials in the ministries. So they feel hopeless and careless. They tell you: “You have to live with corruption.”!

But the majority of Omanis are against corruption. They strongly believe that corruption is threatening their future and eating up their national budget and resources. They try to correct the situation in a reasonable way in order to avoid having problems with the Government or with the public prosecutors who are among the most ruthless prosecutors in the Middle East. There are also many repressive articles like Article 16 of the Oman Penal Code. This article is greatly abused by the judges and public prosecutors. The article talks about “privacy” and personal information and photos, but the prosecutors and judges usually interpret it as referring to anyone writing about corruption.

When the Arab Spring started in 2011, Oman had a small share. A significant number of Omanis started to demonstrate against corruption and corrupt people. You see them gathering in public parks and places demanding an end to corruption and the removal and punishment of corrupt officials and businessmen. His Majesty, Sultan Qaboos, the late Sultan of Oman, was very wise and understanding. He did not use violence or

ruthless measures against the demonstrators as was the case in most Arb countries.

The demonstrators themselves did very little violence and the burning of property.

The students, and some teachers, in many Omani universities and colleges joined the protests. This included the Rustaq College of Education. The students stormed the offices of the Dean and his Academic Assistant. They forced the Dean, Mustafa Abdul Baqui, to resign, put him in his car, and sent him to Said Al Rubaii in the Ministry. The Academic Assistant Dean, Mr. B.B., escaped from the back gate of the College. Then we heard that some other students blocked the roads of Al Suwaiq, where Said Al Rubaii lived, and when they saw him coming, they attacked him, pulled him out of his car, and severely beat him up! This indicates how angry and frustrated the Omani students were with their top officials of higher education.

Conclusions Corruption is one of the major problems facing Oman and the world nowadays. It is widespread and it penetrates every aspect of our lives and all sectors. Higher education is no exception. It really hurts and makes you sad when the government’s announced policy is on one side of the valley and the real problem is on the other side.

The policy is largely on paper only and the corrupt people get stronger and more powerful instead of being punished in spite of all the documents that may be presented against them even in a court of law! (See the documents presented to the Primary and Appeal Courts in Ibra) Corrupt people like Said Al Rubaii, Abdulla Al Sarmi, Mustafa Abdul Baqui, Abood Al Sawafi, and Hamed Al-Hajri are wicked in every way imaginable. They lack integrity. They are dishonest in everything they say or do. They are cheats and big liars. They deceive everyone for their own personal gains and they tell lies all the time. They are disloyal to their country and to the organization they work for. They are loyal to the Devil and to their selfish interests. They steal money from the students, their institution, the Ministry of Higher Education, and even from their own loyal employees. They are villains in every sense of the word.

Corrupt officials are mostly stupid, unqualified, incompetent, reckless, and ruthless.

When you talk to them, you feel they are very superficial people who do not have any knowledge about academic programs or academic issues. They are ignorant, vulgar, and rotten in mentality and uncivilized in behavior.

Corrupt officials like Said Al Rubaii, Abdulla Al Sarmi, Mustafa Abdul Baqui, Abood Al Sawafi, and Hamed Al-Hajri have zero work ethics. This is quite understandable. If they had work ethics, they would not have been corrupt.

There is a great deal of forgery and deception that have been going on for a very long time in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman and in many private colleges and

universities. There has been forgery of students’ grades, employees’ salaries, purchase receipts and documents, teachers’ qualifications, tuition fees, numbers of students at colleges and universities, HR documents, financial statements, bank accounts, salaries, and bonuses.

The complexities of a global and dynamic business world, where non-economic and economic concerns coexist, give ethics a vital role in guiding human action, always with the potential for human excellence in mind. This is the humanistic view of management which is always ignored by stupid, incompetent, and vulgar top executives. This naturally costs the organization a great deal of its reputation, image, and human resources as it has been happening with the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman.

There is hardly any freedom of expression, academic or non-academic, of any sort in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman or the private colleges and universities which the Ministry is supposed to supervise. The moment you disagree with a corrupt official like Said Al Rubaii, Mustafa Abdul Baqui or Abood Al-Sawafi or give a different opinion, you should expect your work contract to be terminated or not renewed even if you are right and your opinions are in line with the official standards and guidelines of the Ministry, and even if your skills and services are badly needed by the Ministry or by your college or university.

I was really shocked at the ability of Said Al Rubaii, Abdulla Al Sarmi, Mustafa Abdul Baqui, Abood Al Sawafi, and Hamed Al-Hajri to take arbitrary and wrong decisions against their colleagues and against the general interests of the students and the Ministry without being held accountable for anything. This creates a toxic atmosphere in the Ministry and in private higher education institutions. Many highquality academics and members of staff do not stand such nonsense and quit their jobs and leave Oman forever.

It is generally observed that corruption and the absence of justice is mostly done by some top officials in the Ministry and some colleges and universities. These top officials are entrusted with the senior management of the Ministry or institution, but they are not worthy of this trust.

There are too many episodes and documents certifying that Said Al Rubaii is very stupid, incompetent, reckless, ruthless, and corrupt. He has inflicted heavy damages on higher education in Oman. The Government of Oman and the Ministry itself bear the official, academic and moral responsibility of appointing such an idiot as the Director-General of the Colleges of Education (Applied Sciences) which certainly deserve better than this idiot to be its top executive. Said Al Rubaii is a crooked person and a wicked social climber. It is really repulsive and abhorrent to see him in the position of the Secretary-General of the Council of Education in Oman- the highest educational authority in the country. This idiot is not fit to manage or lead a

higher, or lower, educational institution. He is fit to manage a farm for camels or cattle or, at best, fit to be a “garbage collector”!

It is a grave misconception for Said Al Rubaii, Abdullah Al Sarmi, Mustafa Abdul Baqui, Abood Al-Sawafi, and Hamed Al Hajri to think that they can do anything they want in higher education and get away with it. This is completely misguided. When teachers and employees are unfairly treated or their rights are taken away, they would do a great deal of harm to the Ministry or institution. They can damage the reputation and spoil the image of the Ministry in different ways; sometimes beyond repairs. The best approach for managing people in businesses and organizations is, therefore, to be fair, objective, and consistent following the codes of work ethics, moral values, and international standards of management practice.

There is a great deal of discrimination, racism, and fascism in the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman and in the private colleges and universities. The expatriate professors, teachers, and their families are subjected to very unfair treatment every day. It is time this disgusting enslavement stopped by the Government of Oman.

The future is bleak.

The fish stinks from its head down.

References All the documents and references mentioned here are available from the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman, The Royal Diwan (Court) of Oman, and the Primary and Appeal Courts in Oman. ____________________________________________________________________ * Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), commonly referred to by his initials LKY, was the first Prime Minister of Singapore, governing for three decades. Lee is recognized as the nation's founding father, with the country described as transitioning from the "third world to the first world in a single generation" under his leadership. (Wikipedia)