Hello dears, here is something useful for the engineers of Saudi
Arabia and might be useful for all of you for information.
Every engineer working in Saudi Arabia must be registered
with the Saudi Council of Engineers (SCE). Without this membership an
expatriate engineer can’t renew his residency permit (Iqama). The SCE is
responsible for verifying and certifying both Saudi and foreign engineers and
consultants. It consults international companies that specialize in identifying
authentic and counterfeit certificates. When it discovers a fake degree of an engineer,
it immediately notifies the Saudi Interior Ministry, as well as the firm or the
consultancy employing that engineer. The SCE evaluates the academic
qualifications and practical experiences of those who worked in the engineering
profession. It creates the professional records for each engineer, containing
documents on his qualifying grades and his professional experiences and
progress. This is essential for strengthening the engineering sector by
improving its quality and for protecting the Kingdom’s institutions and
achievements.
However, some people say that as Engineers' degree is
attested at their home country by Local Education Department, Foreign Office
and Saudi Embassy so there is no point to attest it again from SCE. And still
if they have good reason for this then they should not ask for too high fees.
Saudi embassies and missions abroad have introduced a
scientific system to verify certificates. It is very difficult for people to
enter the Kingdom with fake certificates. Embassy officials contact the
interior and foreign ministers, as well as the universities or institutes that
issued the certificates before endorsing them. Fake engineers will not be able
to produce mark lists.
The SCE system allows for four professional grades:
engineer, associate engineer, professional engineer and consultant engineer.
For architects there are four similar categories. An engineer must hold a
bachelor’s degree from an accredited university with a four-year course. He
should submit a yearly mark sheet for four years along with a copy of his
passport and iqama, and a letter from his sponsor. The accreditation fee of SCE
is SR 1250 for engineers, SR1700 for associate engineers, SR 2300 for
professional engineers and SR 2800 for consultant engineer. After the first renewal the registration fee
is less. Attaining qualifying points for the renewal of a membership in three
years is important. An engineer has to obtain 80 points, associate and
professional engineers need 60 points and consultant engineers 50 points. Points
are calculated according to the scientific and professional acquisitions of the
engineer. It includes the qualifying points for all activities and tasks
practiced by engineers such as academic qualification, professional grades,
courses and training, employment ranks, membership in organizations and
associations, scientific participation, conferences and seminars, engineering
arbitration, engineering leadership, and other works.
The procedure to apply online for SCE registration is easy.
Just visit the website and follow the instructions. http://www.saudieng.sa/English/Pages/default.aspx
You will receive an e-mail from saudieng.org with a subject "your
application accepted".
There is a form that you will have to fill up which should
be submitted along with the attested copy of your degree certificate. This will
be required during the time of Iqama renewal. Ask your personnel mananger, to
give you the forms. Here is a link for
application. http://crm.saudieng.org/nCRM/Register.aspx?rt=prof
Make sure that you keep the registration reference at the
end the application request. You cannot confirm how much time this SCE
Registration takes after uploading the documents.
Fake engineering certificates are available all over the
world and people holding such degrees come to the Kingdom using driver and
farmer visas. It is common knowledge that most expatriates work in Saudi Arabia
with Iqama professions not exactly matching their actual job titles. This is
probably the biggest cause of heartburn, as people are unable to bring their
families into the kingdom simply because their Iqama has a non-supervisory
title. For those expats who are on an engineer visa, they should submit all
their qualification certificates and documents to SCE. Let SCE do the job of
reviewing these documents. If they reject these documents, they will get a
message from them to collect the "Non-registration" letter from their
office. This letter must be submitted to the passport office to process the
profession change in Iqama. The rejection letter will be addressed to the
sponsor. So the responsibility will shift to the sponsor. The only problem then,
whether the sponsor has enough supervisory category visas so that the engineer can
continue to be with his families.
An important issue of Bangladeshi engineers related to the
accreditation of SCE came to my knowledge. To become members of SCE, the
Engineering Graduation Certificate must be attested from Saudi Embassy which is
present in your Home Country. But unfortunately, Bangladeshi Engineers cannot
make attestation of their certificates from Bangladesh Saudi Embassy because saudi
Embassy in Bangladesh has stopped this service from 2011. Only because of this
reason, Bangladeshi Engineers are unable to become a Member of SCE. Bangladeshi engineers need help from SCE
President for this case.
Another problem has occurred that many engineers who are
holding genuine degree certificates are suffering from the current system of
certificate attestation. It takes not less than 3 to 6 months with long
procedures both in India and Gulf states. Many degrees might not fake. They are
from educational institutions that are not registered in their respective
countries. They are private institutions and the degree documents do not get
endorsed or certified by the governments.
There are many non-Arab engineers in Saudi Arabia. They said
that after applying or getting SCE accreditation, they started receiving many
useful emails from them related to their activities and election process. But
those e-mails are only in Arabic language. They wonder that, how those mails
could only in Arabic as a communication language as most of the expatriates are
non-Arabic speaking.
SCE is doing a commendable job and it is indeed a good step
to have the transparent engineers in Saudi Arabia. But, what about others? My
point is that why this to be applied to only for Engineers? There are many
people other than Engineers who are working on fake degrees and certificates at
handsome salaries in Saudi Arabia.
(References: SPA, Arab News, SCE official website etc.)
