In January 3rd 2011 a contradictory and far from reality article was published in Rudaw daily newspaper #144 titled (Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research asks for facilitating a student matters without awareness of Salahaddin University). We find it very important to answer this article and for the people to know the truth since the information mentioned in the article is not correct and far from being accurate.
One of the important initiatives that are achieved by the ministry is the start of using electronic correspondences for the purpose of accelerating the daily works for individuals, professors, staff of the higher education institutes and installations, now they can directly contact the minister`s office, this experiment has proven to be very successful for entire period since its start last year and it showed high level of satisfaction from the people and staff and considered to be a great step forward to reduce routine and bureaucracy.
The student story that was misleadingly mentioned in the newspaper is like this:
- This student has emailed the office of the minister requesting that as most of the state universities follow a system for facilitating students affairs which includes granting 10 marks to students who failed in 2 subjects so that the status of them changes from fail to pass with one subject,, the student mentioned in his email that many of the government universities are following this system, for this he was asking to make the department of programming in the college of engineering, university of Salahaddin to follow the same procedures regarding this matter.
- To follow up the case, email of the student was forwarded to the director of quality assurance.
- The director of quality assurance made a phone call to the president of the department of programming to discuss and find out his opinion about the matter; as a result, president of the department shows no objection and agreed upon applying the same procedures followed in other places.
- In conclusion of the conversation happened, director of quality assurance addressed the department of programming by formal letter, the letter also mentioned the necessity to make arrangements for all the students who are eligible to be covered by the system as its in other colleges, it is good to know that the number of the students who will benefit from the system are 10.
And the main purposes of the ministry to treat this email and to follow up are
- To make true and thoughtful follow up for all the issues and complaints that the ministry receives via email.
- To make equal opportunity in all installations and institutions of higher education, in other words, if an institution applies the system of facilitating status of students then other places including department of programming should do the same.
- For the purpose of putting an end for the routine and bureaucracy in the ways of handling the daily works and affairs of the people, sometimes the directorates inside the ministry do communication with affiliated bodies for the purpose of exchanging ideas and thoughts for the best solution of issues.
- The demand of the ministry addressed to the department of programming was not for the benefit of the student emailed the ministry only, but it was for the benefit of all the students who are covered by the system of facilitation, this fact was mentioned in the letter that was addressed by quality assurance.
So we would like here to expose this reality for the mass opinion and entire people that the only reason behind following up and asking for facilitation of this group of student was purely for the goal of achieving equal opportunities.
We are here laying the utmost liability on the shoulders of the responsible parties at the University of Salahaddin because the matter could`ve been solved with mutual cooperation and via email or phone call with director of quality assurance without the need to reach media.
The president of department of programming is also responsible for the misleading of the people opinion and the presidency of Salahaddin University; we assure that the director of quality assurance did ask for the opinion of the president of department of programming and did address a letter to the department with the best practice of professionalism, the question is why the president of the department didn`t explain things well during the phone call with the director of quality assurance? If he had any concerns or other suggestions regarding the use of the system in his department, why he didn’t explain it and notify the ministry? No doubt about the liability of such act is completely falls on the president of the department and the ministry will official ask the university of Salahaddin to initiate an investigation with him about this matter.
Finally we want to assure the people of Kurdistan with the fact that ministry of higher education and scientific research is busy with some key projects and ideas that will definitely develop all the higher education sector, especially when it comes to quality assurance and the best practice of it which is now the priority of for the ministry, we are also very confident that such misleading acts will have no impact on our determination to our continues development process.