Deadline for degree verification set

May 5, 2007

Dubai: Degree verification is to become mandatory upon renewing labour cards starting from June 1, announced a minister.

Dr Ali Bin Abdullah Al Ka'abi, Minister of Labour, said the rule will apply to anybody who has not verified his/her degree certificate earlier.

The cost of verifying a degree is Dh500 which the employer has to pay. This is the third move in a series of policies monitoring the authenticity of certificates for job seekers in the country.

The ministry had issued a rule in March 2006 making degree verification mandatory for those applying for work permits and in June the same year it enforced a life time ban from working in the country for those found holding false degrees.

“We will no longer accept any kind of violations in our labour market and the rule will be applicable to everyone even if they have been working here for decades,“ said Al Ka'abi.

Companies which will not adhere to the decision will face strong measures, he said.

They will be given a 30-day grace period to cancel papers of employees found with false degrees or their transactions will be stopped.

Since the implementation of the programme in October 2005 some 567 fake degrees have been discovered out of which 252 fake degree holders have already been deported, according to statistics released by a company that verifies degrees for the ministry.

Companies employing the remaining number have been contacted to take steps for deportation.

Paul Kane, Director of Integra Screen in the Middle East, told Gulf News that they verify around 8,000 degrees per month.

The highest level of fraud was involving BA degrees. More than 72 per cent of people found to have false certificates had fake BA degrees.

Sri Lankans held the highest number of fake certificates in proportion to the total number of work permits applied for from the same country, followed by South Africans and Chinese.

* Reproduced with permission from Gulf News