publish time

11/11/2020

author name Arab Times

publish time

11/11/2020

‘Professors do not take into account priorities of current stage’

KUWAIT CITY, Nov 11: Student forces at the College of Engineering and Petroleum in Kuwait University have categorically expressed their refusal to take their final exams for this semester in person, saying the step exposes them to the risk of infection with the Coronavirus, reports Al-Qabas daily. In a statement, the student forces addressed the Minister of Health, Dr Bassel Al-Sabah, on the need to issue a decision to prevent the personal attendance of students and work to protect students against the pandemic.

According to the statement issued by the College of Engineering and Petroleum Society (the Independent List and the Scientific List), some professors from the College of Engineering and Petroleum at Kuwait University are moving against the state’s direction in preserving and protecting society from the outbreak of the corona pandemic through their insistence on students personally attending the exams, despite the adoption of distance education, in the application of precautions recommended by health authorities.

The student forces pointed out that the professors do not take into account the priorities of the current stage according to the general orientation of the state, in terms of maintaining public health and control, and reducing the number of daily infections of Covid-19, in light of the fierce attack of the second wave of the pandemic that recently cast a shadow over most of Europe and our Arab region. “Consequently, recommendations were issued recently by the Ministry of Health and with your care, we all followed and supported them due to the keenness and efforts made by the ministry to prevent the spread of the pandemic”, they added.

Notified
“From this standpoint, you are notified that we have been addressed through the university of the necessity to personally attend to write the final exams for the current semester, which the registration was made last September on the basis that study will be done remotely. Indeed, the study began last October and an educational platform was created recently at a high cost”.

The statement touched upon the required preventive controls, saying, “There is no doubt that the professors’ insistence on attending the exams represents a grave violation of health instructions and departure from the obligation of social distancing through the mixing of approximately 1,500 students, in addition to members of the teaching staff, workers and drivers without prior study conducted by the university administration, as students were not informed of the plan at the beginning of the current semester.”

Statement added: Kuwait has been a pioneer and role model for all countries in the Arab Gulf region in dealing with the pandemic, and won the praise of the World Health Organization for following the instructions and recommendations of the Ministry of Health in dealing with this pandemic. It also said the minister of health has been following up affairs daily, while everyone is committed to the return plan the Ministry of Health drew and implemented for the state to return to normal life, in five stages.

“We are still in the fourth stage, and even witnessed the understanding of the clergy concerning the houses of worship that were asked to adhere to social distancing did not see them objecting, as some professors of the university who miss the current jurisprudence of priorities do. We’ll hold them fully responsible for the consequences”.