Dancing with Wolves: Triviality Industry in Higher Education Institutions

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"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." – John Dewey

“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.” ―?Noam Chomsky

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.” ―?William Faulkner

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Introduction

Triviality has a special meaning in some sciences like Mathematics, Physics, and Technology, which is not our concern here. Here we are concerned with "triviality" as a concept in our day-to-day life. It usually refers to something less significant or of little value. This word is derived from the Latin word “trivium”, which is used to refer to the lower division of liberal arts. Triviality means something with a lack of attention or lack of seriousness or significance.

Triviality then is the quality of being trivial, insignificant or unimportant. People who do trivial things or spend most of their time doing or watching trivial things are referred to as "trivial people".

We may differ in our opinions about what is trivial and what is not, regarding normal things we do or watch but we all agree that triviality has no place in education at all levels, especially higher education institutions like colleges and universities that are supposed to be serious academic institutions of a very high level offering robust academic programs and quality education to students.

Everybody is talking about quality education these days, especially in private colleges and universities; they all wish to get recognition and accreditation. However, in some colleges and universities things are going upside down and they may not get accreditation in a hundred years if things stay as they are now.

As everyone understands the concept, quality education refers to a high level of quality of everything the college or university does or will do, as per the local, regional and international criteria, standards, and benchmarks. This naturally covers all programs from the Foundation Program to all study programs at all levels in addition to the other operations that make the college or university keep going.

Quality education in higher education institutions is a field work based not on ink and paper but on what is actually being done and implemented in the institutions. It requires?highly-qualified and honest people?with academic specialization and field experience. It is regrettable to see a college or a university with senior managers lacking in academic qualifications, experience and honesty. They are simply trivial, corrupt people. This is the case of A'Sharqiyah University in Oman which has been sinking into an unbelievable level of triviality: a trivial Foundation Program, trivial study programs, trivial student activities during which students skip their boring classes and lectures, and corrupt, trivial senior managers like Hamed Al-Hajri (B.A. in Politics) and Mohammed Al-Barashdi (M.A. in Nothing?) who are in control of A'Sharqiyah University but are clearly unqualified to run a higher education institution.

When you go to the websites of respectable universities, you find important information about the academic programs, the assessment procedures, the achievements of the university in teaching and research, the standing of the university on international scales, the names, academic ranks, and achievements of the academic teachers and professors, and all other necessary information that will enable you to decide whether to join the university as a student or as an academic. You do not need a user name or a password to access this information as it considered among the rights of the public to get to know to enable them make informed decisions.

But when you go to the website of A'Sharqiyah University in Oman, you find trivial information and trivial details proving very clearly that A'Sharqiyah University has become a trivial university in every sense of the word. Just look at the information and picture above from A'Sharqiyah University website together with a miniature of an Omani school boy telling the readers about what the University has done for its professors, teachers, staff, and students after numerous complaints regarding the bad services at the University. A university's website is not the place for showing off trivial basic things you have done in the course of your basic routine operations like providing a car wash service, an electronic billing system in the hypermarket and minimarkets, reducing the roaming of strangers inside the university, and other trivial things. But when you want to access important information about the Foundation Program, the academic programs, the faculty and academics, the assessment procedures, you are required to provide a user name and a password although this information cannot be regarded as "confidential". It is offered by all respectable universities in the world except A'Sharqiyah University in Oman.

The question now is why does A'Sharqiyah University do that? We will answer this question in this article.?

Triviality in Daily Life

According to Vocabualy.com Dictionary, the word trivial "comes from the Latin word?trivium, which means "commonplace," but also "crossroads." Literally, it's a combination of?tri, or "three," and?via, "road." Hence, a?trivium?is an oh-so-ordinary "place where three roads meet.

Definitions 1. (noun):?a detail that is considered insignificant; 2. (noun) :?something of small importance; 3. (noun): the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous"(1)

"Triviality?is used to describe a result that needs very less or no effort to prove or derive it. Its synonyms are unimportance, insignificance, in-consequence, etc. The word “trivial” is seen very often in our day-to-day life. Trivial usually refers to something less significant or is of little value. This word is derived from the Latin word “trivium”, which is used to refer to the lower division of liberal arts. Triviality means something with a lack of attention or lack of seriousness or significance." (2)

Triviality?is then a quality of being unimportant or insignificant. We might dislike most reality TV shows because of their?triviality, preferring to watch documentaries about serious subjects.

You can also use the word?triviality?to mean an unimportant detail: "Let's discuss world peace instead of focusing on trivialities like what's for lunch or which celebrities are getting divorced!"

In defining "significant" the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) uses the word "trivial" to define its opposite: "Significant risks are those that are not trivial in nature" (www.hse.gov.uk/risk/faq.htm? ).

The word trivial does not appear in the legislation. However, it does occur in court judgements.

R v Chargot (2008) concerned an untrained dump truck driver who died when his vehicle overturned. The House of Lords ruling made it clear that "when the legislation refers to risks it is not contemplating risks that are trivial or fanciful-|The law does not aim to create an environment that is entirely risk-free-| It is directed at situations where there is a material risk to safety and health, which any reasonable person would appreciate and take steps to guard against." (3)

Movies get advertised everywhere, popular songs blasted in every shop, and cheap entertainment is easily found and very cheap. Trashy and ‘trivial’ things are shown to us by the industry day after day. They make money whereas serious things are much harder to make money from. Trivial Industry are getting people hooked on sex and action and are creating constant and dependable cash flow.

The greed for profits in the social media has made many social media websites offer huge amounts of trivial contents to their users: trivial songs, trivial movies, trivial videos, and trivial news of all sorts.

Social media platforms and sites have become intriguing virtual worlds that attract and trap millions of Internet users from all ages and backgrounds. People resort to these platforms and sites to break the dullness of their daily life and seek some rest from their exhausting struggle to earn a living.

Although there are some good, serious materials and videos that are worth watching and reading on these sites, there are also massive amounts of trivial materials that attract millions of viewers, especially young people; students are among them.

It is very dangerous now to see some senior managers in higher education institutions trying to imitate digital social platforms and sites in their educational programs and activities and offer trivial programs and engage students in childish, silly activities that have never been part of serious, academic education. This is what trivial and corrupt senior managers like Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi are doing at A'Sharqiyah University in Oman in order to make profits and appease their corrupt bosses at the expense of quality education.

Triviality as Industry

Alain Deneault's book (2013) La médiocratie (Canada: Lux Editeur. (1st ed.) Translated into English by Catherine Browne with the title, "Mediocracy" published by Toronto: Between the Lines) is essential for anyone who wants to understand the concept of Triviality Industry and what impacts this industry has been leaving on all aspects of our life.

Alain Deneault, a Canadian philosopher, uses the term mediocracy to refer to the concept of triviality. For him, the trivial rich people and corporations control all our life now and have smashed every genuine and serious idea. There was no Reichstag fire. No storming of the Bastille. No mutiny on the Aurora. Instead, the mediocre have seized power without firing a single shot. They rose to power on the tide of an economy where workers produce assembly-line meals without knowing how to cook at home, give customers instructions over the phone that they themselves don't understand, or sell books and newspapers that they never read. The power is in the hands of the Trivial Industry owners, bosses, and advocates. The power is in the hands of the trivial industry owners and bosses. Their empire now extends to all spheres of life: the arts, the economy, science, law, and politics with special focus on the academic field. (4)

Deneault here is ringing the bell of danger about the potential horrible consequences resulting from the dominant power and control of the trivial people in all our spheres of life: from the academic field to the political, economic, commercial, financial and then to the arts and mass media. So how are they able to assume power and control in this way?

Deneault believes that the trivial people are able to achieve that through the academic fields represented mainly by the colleges, universities, research centers, and academic organizations all over the world. Many of these academic centers have become centers for the industry of triviality.

The educated, the wise, and the scientists have moved aside and have been replaced by the so-called "experts, specialists, and professors" who are fully controlled by the trivial decision-makers. The colleges, universities, and academic centers and organizations have thus been diverted from their genuine visions and missions and have become the mouthpiece for the trivial and powerful decision makers and they are no longer after the truth and academic honesty and transparency. A large number of academics, experts, and professors are prepared now to produce false statements and fake research results to satisfy those who have the power of wealth and control over the colleges, universities, and academic centers.

It is not an essential requirement for "experts", "academics" and "professors" in trivial colleges and universities to be knowledgeable and wise. They do not need to tell the truth and side with the right against the wrong. All they need to do is to forge everything and sell their conscience to serve their narrow needs and selfish interests. The most important requirement is to get to know the game well and play it very well to satisfy the trivial wealthy and powerful masters. They need to fully understand hypocrisy and how to be good social climbers.

?Quality Culture in Higher Education

Respectable universities exert great efforts to provide quality education to their students and consumers. They also emphasize quality improvement, which has been a concern for higher education institution since the Middle Ages. (5)

Universities mostly emphasize quality improvement, which has been a concern for higher education institutions since the Middle Ages, while the government pays special attention to accountability, aiming at guaranteeing the quality of the services provided to society by higher education institutions. Over the last decades the context in which higher education operates has changed considerably due to a number of factors such as the emergence of markets as tools of public policy, the rise of New Public Management policy, globalization and the growing public pressure for accountability in higher education. These developments have originated new and different rationales for quality. Quality assessment and accreditation have become essential tools for a range of actions in public policies.

In the last decades the market has emerged as an instrument of public policy making extensive use of market mechanisms as a tool for promoting competition between public services (including higher education) to increase their efficiency and to maximize the provision of social benefits. These policies have started to use three E's for the management of for the management of the public sector (6): Economy in the acquisition of resources, Efficiency in the use of resources, and Effectiveness in the achievement of objectives.

In several countries governments have also been experimenting with market-type mechanisms to force higher education institutions to compete for students, for funds, for research money. At the European level, the Bologna Declaration, "redefining the nature and content of academic programs, is transforming what were once state monopolies over academic degrees into competitive international markets" (7).

However, the efficient operation of a market requires it to be perfectly competitive. This implies a number of conditions that are difficult to fulfil, one of them being the need for perfect information by producers and consumers about price, quality and other relevant characteristics of the good or service being purchased. Therefore, the public disclosure of the results of quality assessment exercises can be seen as a tool to provide useful information for the efficient operation of the higher education market. Information is particularly relevant in the case of higher education that has three simultaneous characteristics (8):

1.????? It is an ‘experience’ good, meaning that its relevant characteristics can only be effectively assessed by consumption. It is only after a student starts attending classes that he forms a true idea of what he has got in terms of quality, professors, and educational experience.

2. t is a rare purchase, as a student in principle enrolls in a single degree program throughout his professional life. Therefore, he cannot derive market experience from frequent purchases, as it would be the case of buying clothes or food.

3. Opting-out costs are high, as changing to a different program or institution is difficult and in general has high associated costs.

The simultaneity of these three characteristics of higher education gives the government a strong basis for intervention to protect consumers. In general, government intervention (9) aims at providing information to students and their families and may take different forms such as licensing, accreditation, and the publicity of the results of quality assessment activities.

The problem is that increased institutional autonomy, combined with market competition, may create difficulties for market regulation, as autonomous institutions competing in a market may follow strategies aimed at ensuring their own development and survival, even if to the detriment of the public good or the government’s objectives.

Massy (10) argued that ‘… the way institutions currently respond to markets and seek internal efficiencies, left unchecked, is unlikely to serve the public good’, a danger that is exacerbated when competition is excessive, or when the state cuts public subsidies. By using the microeconomic theory of non-profit enterprises, Massy (11) demonstrated that, under those conditions, institutions tend to behave like for-profit ones, ignoring the promotion of public good inherent to their missions. This forces the state to intervene by changing the rules of the market to ensure the fulfilment of its political objectives, quality assessment being one of the tools that might be used to ensure the compliance of institutions with public policies.

The principal-agent dilemma leads to a contradiction of neo-liberal policies. On the one hand, neo-liberal policies aim at promoting the competition of institutions under market rules, reducing as much as possible government regulation in favor of market regulation. On the other hand, realizing that autonomous institutions competing in a market may behave in ways that do not maximize the provision of social benefits and the public good, the government will be tempted to intervene to steer institutional behavior towards its objectives.

Therefore, the government arbitrarily intervenes to change the rules of the game. It forces institutions to adapt their behavior to government objectives by using an increasing number of mechanisms such as extensive arrays of performance indicators and measures of academic quality, whether quality assurance or accreditation. This is an example of the use of quality assessment as a compliance tool.

The use of markets as instruments of public policy is strongly correlated with the emergence of New Public Management (NPM) that ‘has championed a vision of public managers as the entrepreneurs of a new, leaner, and increasingly privatized government, emulating not only the practices but also the values of business’ (12). Under NPM, students are referred to as customers or clients, and quality assurance and accountability measures have been put in place to ensure that academic provision meets the clients’ needs and expectations.

One of the consequences of the NPM policies appears to have been a strong attack on the professions, including the academic profession (13). The academy no longer enjoys the prestige on which higher education can build a successful claim to a real autonomy (14). The gradual proletarisation of the academic professions – an erosion of their relative class and status advantages (15) – has gone hand in hand with the emergence of academic capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie 1997) that makes academics less like university professionals and more like all other workers whose discoveries are considered work-for-hire, the property of the corporation, not of the professional.

NPM has also promoted the new values and demands of ‘economy, efficiency, utility, public accountability, enterprise and various definitions of quality’, which has forced institutions to use micromanagement control technologies, including systems for evaluation and performance measurement of research, teaching and some administrative activities, particularly those linked to finance. The implementation of these systems occurs in basic units, which are internally made accountable for budget expenditure (eventually decentralized) and for the results of evaluations of teaching and research activities. This has strongly contributed to the proletarisation of academics and diminishing their professional autonomy (16).

The emergence of the NPM and the attacks on the efficiency of public services, including higher education, has resulted in loss of trust in institutions and their professionals3. For Martin Trow (1996) (17) accountability is an alternative to trust, and efforts to strengthen it usually involve parallel efforts to weaken trust, and he adds that accountability and cynicism about human behavior go hand in hand. So we can see that quality assessment, quality assurance, and accreditation can also be used as a replacement for trust in institutions.

The real issues facing Quality Assurance (QA) for colleges and universities as some may experience a very “dishonest’ process of getting recognition and accreditation for a college or a university through “crooked” means. This is a sort of corruption which is accepted only by those who sacrifice everything in order to make huge profits at the expense of the students, teachers, and society. This will certainly shake the public confidence in higher education institutions, especially in the private sector.

While the concept of quality assurance is new, many of the ideas behind the concept are by no means new. What is new, however, apart from the new language, is a more systematic and far-reaching approach to monitoring performance and ensuring that institutions and systems have in place appropriate and effective mechanisms for review and assessment, and for renewal and improvement. Compared with past approaches, the new mechanisms also put much more emphasis on external scrutiny, seeking the views of employers and graduates and, in various ways, making the results of assessments more widely available (18).

Quality education in higher education institutions is a field work based not on ink and paper but on what is actually being done and implemented in the institutions. It requires?highly-qualified and honest people?with academic specialization and field experience. It is regrettable to see a college or a university assign a QA department or QA tasks to people who have nothing to do in any way whatsoever with QA as if QA was the “dustbin” where unwanted or incompetent employees are thrown into. Of course, this is done in a college or a university where the senior managers themselves are lacking in honesty and in all the criteria of being good managers. They are simply corrupt people.

A'Sharqiyah University: A Triviality University

A'Sharqiyah University started as an academic, respectable institution with a promising future and with honest, hard-working academics and administrators until Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamed Al-Hajri came to join it as senior managers in 2013. They have transformed the University into a place for garbage and triviality. There are many reasons and operational aspects according to which A'Sharqiyah University can now be classified as a Triviality University in every sense of the word. The following are some of these reasons and aspects.

Trivial Senior Managers

They come and go. They are supposed to manage and lead. We expect them to be intelligent, qualified, competent, careful, and merciful. But because of bad recruitment and corruption, you find most of the senior managers at A'Sharqiyah University stupid, unqualified, incompetent, reckless, merciless, and trivial. They are called “senior managers”, but there is nothing “senior” about them at A'Sharqiyah University except their stupidity, wickedness, corruption, and triviality. When we apply for a simple job like a teacher, we are made to go through a very tiring, lengthy process of recruitment. We fill many awkward application forms which require very detailed information about our qualifications, experiences, achievements, researches, and personal information. Most, if not all, of the personal information, is irrelevant to your eligibility to the job such as the name of your mother, the number of your passport, your nationality and your religion. This is required by almost all higher education institutions even by those who call themselves “equal opportunity” employers, especially in Oman despite their claim that they are not “racist” and will consider your application on its academic and professional merits and not on any ethnicity, nationality or religion. They go on asking very “silly” and trivial questions about your family and whether you have committed “a crime” in the past or not though they know very well that in many countries in the world nowadays, including Oman, you do not need to commit a crime to be labeled a “criminal”; they will invent one for you, especially if you have criticized the government in any way. It is sufficient to write an article against corruption, or demand your “end-of-service” gratuity or write an internal memo to your boss or voice an opinion for your basic human rights to be given the label! Then, after a very lengthy process you are given the job if you are lucky in addition to your qualifications and experience. This is the case with normal applicants. But with many other applicants who have special relationships with the Board of Directors or Board of Trustees or if you get a special recommendation a note or letter from a powerful figure or Sheikh, you do need all this lengthy process to get a job as a senior manager; you will be given the job immediately, even in a higher education institution and even if you are a trivial person in everything you say and do, like Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi at A'Sharqiyah University in Oman.

Superstitions

A'Sharqiyah University is located in a very undeveloped region in Oman where you find strange superstitions that defy logic and science. Because they are trivial, many senior managers believe in these superstitions, especially those who breed camels on their farms like Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi.

They often wash their faces with camel’s urine and drinks it for divine blessings. They think that camel’s urine will give them health and increase their wealth! This superstition has impacted many other senior managers at A'Sharqiyah University and they now practice it. Have you ever heard of a higher education institution in the world where senior managers wash their faces with camel's urine and drink it? You do not need to go far. Just go to their offices and You Tube and check the videos for yourself. How do you expect then A'Sharqiyah University to be an academic respectable institution with these trivial senior managers and their trivial mentality?

Zero Work Ethics

Many senior managers like Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi at A'Sharqiyah University are corrupt senior executives who are corrupt and 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 A’Sharqiyah university. They are loyal to their selfish interests. They steal money from the students, the University, the Ministry of Higher Education, and even from their own loyal employees. They are villains. They indulge in a very unprofessional behavior of deception, cheating, and lying, especially to the teachers, students and members of staff. They never give correct and accurate information to the Ministry of Higher Education, the Board of Directors or the Board of Trustees. They do not respect teachers and never honor the work contracts they themselves have signed on behalf of the University. For them, work ethics and the qualities of honesty, fairness, and justice do not exist in their lives or the workplace they manage. They are crooked and prepared to deal with the Devil for their own selfish gains.?Hamed Al-Hajri, Mohammed Al-Barashdi, and Abood Al-Sawafi before them, have created a toxic work environment unprecedented in any higher education institution in the world. They have always put themselves above the law and have always acted in ways that violate the basic academic values in higher education. I still remember the story of the former Director of the Language Center and Foundation Program at A’Sharqiyah University, which is a familiar story by now. Here is a brief account for those who have not read it yet.

The Director signed a work contract with the University to work as an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL and then as the Director of the Language Center.?He was working very hard, faithfully, and diligently. Then an academic and a legal dispute happened between an educational company running the Foundation Program and A’Sharqiyah University which was then a start-up higher education provider. This dispute was threatening the very existence of the University as there was no Foundation Program and there were no teachers available to run the Program. So the Associate Professor was asked by the University to design the Foundation Program. The time was too short and there was no one to help him in any way. But he worked day and night to design the Program as per the national and international requirements and standards. He had also to work almost single-handedly to recruit 52 qualified teachers from all over the world to teach the English Language, Math, and IT to the students of the Foundation Program. Then he had to contact reputed publishers to arrange for the purchase of the academic books, textbooks, and other teaching materials (CDs, DVDs, teachers’ manuals, etc.). Again single-handedly! He continued to work very hard and efficiently in running the Foundation Program after he became the Director of the Language Center and Foundation Program. As per the structure of the Language Center, there should be at least 5 academics and members of staff to assist the Director in the management of the Language Center. But the University behaved in a very stupid and stingy way and did not appoint anyone in order to save money. So the Director had to do everything alone! You can imagine how hard it was to run a Language Center and a Foundation Program in a start-up university with 52 teachers and thousands of students by one single person!

Then came Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamed Al-Hajri to join A’Sharqiyah University. Instead of appreciating the hard work and the unique efforts done by the Director, his work contract was not renewed in spite of the fact that the University was in urgent need of his experience, expertise, and services. All this because he stood against their forgery of students’ grades and corruption. They did worse than that. They decided to not give the Director his end-of-service gratuity though this is completely illegal in Oman and against all moral values. You cannot simply deprive your employees of their legal rights and compensations just because they wrote an internal memo against you as part of doing their jobs. So the Director took them to court. The case took about two years during which the Director, who was an expatriate, had to struggle to feed himself and his family. These two monsters used all wicked and evil means to discredit the Director and deprive him of all his legal and human rights. But the worse thing they did was to publish an advertisement in a local newspaper in Arabic saying the Director, who was an Associate Professor, “had run away from work and no one was permitted to re-employ him” in spite of the fact that the Director’s work relationship with the University had officially ended almost a year before and the court case was still going on. The Director had already been given an official letter from the University certifying the end of the working relationship. So how did he run away from work? Imagine yourself a university professor and your work relationship with your university has officially ended and you have an official letter from the university itself to this effect. Then after a year, they put an ad in a local newspaper with your picture on it saying “this worker has run away from the university and should not be given work by another employer” as if the university professor were a manual worker working on a farm! This is really insulting and very offensive to all university professors and educators and to the higher education system in Oman and the world. It also violates the very basic human values of Omani society. Are Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamed Al-Hajri really Omanis? Are they human beings or monsters? As if this was not enough for them, they went even further. They refused even to give air-tickets to the Director and his family to return to their country as per the Oman labor Law in order to embarrass him and get him deported by the police. Wickedness beyond belief; triviality beyond imagination. Why do they need to be trivial like that?

Disregard for Transparency, Law, and Regulations

Rules and regulations are essential tools to keep work moving smoothly. Abood Al-Sawafi has become an “expert” in stifling transparency and fostering a disgusting culture of fear. Transparency has been replaced by what is mistakenly called the “respect" for confidentiality and the "secrets" of the organization, though these so-called “secrets” are merely information and guidelines needed by the teachers and staff to do their job properly. The values of honesty, justice, and fairness have become words difficult to understand, let alone to be practiced. Trivial and corrupt senior managers like Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi would tell you to your face:?“I am the decision-maker and I will do?what I want.”?This is all done in the name of A’Sharqiyah University. Everything is secretive and confidential. He pays only lip-service to the concept of?transparency. Most employees do their routine jobs blindly as they are told and many teachers think that their job is just to go to class and teach the textbook and submit the marks the students have got by hook or by crook. Employees and teachers are too frightened to speak up their minds. Transparency is not something these trivial managers is after or something they need to worry about; they are too trivial and vulgar to be ashamed of anything.

Corruption does not exist in a vacuum. It is usually committed by senior managers who cheat the systems of control and supervision and do not respect any laws or regulations. They are usually entrusted with a range of executive powers but they always betray this trust and go beyond these powers for selfish and wicked purposes.

You just do not know why and who has given these trivial managers extra powers. They do not behave like thugs and bullies only; but also like mafia bosses. They do not care about any laws, bylaws, charters or regulations. They always put themselves “above the law” and have bizarre impunity. They are not held accountable for anything illegal or harmful they have done to anyone or to the University and its reputation.?We do not find this situation in respectable, genuine universities; we find it only in trivial universities like A'Sharqiyah University in Oman.

Trivial Foundation Program

The General Foundation Program (GFP) was one of the most successful programs at A’Sharqiyah University and in Oman as a whole. It has been designed as per the International standards and benchmarks of Foundation Programs. It used to consist of four components: English Component, Mathematics Component, Computing, and IT Component with the General and Academic Study Skills component taught in specific courses and also built in the other three components. All components follow the criteria and standards of higher education as stipulated by the Ministry of Higher Education and other education and accreditation authorities.

The Program was of very high quality and was effective in helping students attain the prescribed student learning outcomes in at least four areas of learning: English, Mathematics, Computing and IT, and General and Academic Study Skills. It was very popular among students and their parents and the University gained a very good academic reputation for it. Students used to refuse to move to other colleges and universities without completing the Foundation Program at the University. Then came Abood Al-Sawafi, VC, and his Assistant VC, Hamed Al-Hajri illegally canceled the Foundation Program in violation of all the legal obligations of the University towards its students and their genuine interests and in defiance of the Ministry of Higher Education and all accreditation authorities.

The Program has been drastically reduced in terms of scope, hours, teaching materials, quizzes, tests, and exams. It no longer covers all the English Language skills as it used to do. The number of books has been reduced from eight books to only one and the whole process of testing and assessment has been reduced to one trivial exam far below the level of a traditional primary school exam.

Trivial Academic Programs

After five dark barren years, Abood Al-Sawafi (former VC) left A’Sharqiyah University. He was sacked or made to resign leaving a trail of destruction and chaos everywhere. Everything was going upside down. He completely destroyed the Foundation Program making it a pile of garbage. The students come and go gaining nothing from a program far below even the level of English they had already studied in schools.

He also destroyed the academic programs of the colleges and reduced them to rubbles. Imagine a university program which consists of just useless presentations and tiny handouts illegally photocopied from some chapters of books and paid for by the students though most of these students are very poor and cannot afford to pay for these handouts.

In all documents and websites, A’Sharqiyah University says that “English is the medium of instruction at the University.” according to the University’s charter, laws, and bylaws. It is also the official requirement of the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman as per the Ministerial Decision (78/2009) issued by the Ministry of Higher Education to officially permit A’Sharqiyah University to operate as a higher education provide using English as the medium of instruction.

But Abood Al-Sawafi disregarded this official obligation and turned it upside down.?He has made Arabic the language of instruction.?Just go to the A’Sharqiyah University website, A’Sharqiyah Facebook page, and other pages on the Internet, you will be bombarded with information and notices telling you about the courses being taught in Arabic at the University: B.A. in Education, B.A. in Arts, B.A. in Archives and Documentation, B.A. in Management, Diploma in Management, B.A. in Educational Counseling, B.A.in Business Studies, and even M.A. in Business Administration (MBA). So how does the University claim that “English is the medium of instruction”?!

From the first days of his appointment as the Vice-Chancellor of A’Sharqiyah University in Oman, Abood Al-Sawafi with his "fish market" mentality started taking steps so incredible that no one outside of the campus would believe you when you tell them. He started by drastically reducing all the salaries, increasing the teaching load of the professors and teachers in the different colleges and departments, and cutting off the number of books being in use. He replaced all western-educated Ph.D. holders with M.A. teachers who hold degrees and certificates from non-recognized or substandard institutions and who cannot speak in an intelligible accent nor can they produce one good sentence in English. He is so stupid that he does everything contrary to all the established principles, values, and work ethics in the academic world. Almost all the Foundation books are damaged or very old with all the exercises already answered so they are useless. He has refused to buy new books because, as he always used to say, this costs money though the Ministry of Higher Education in Oman and the self-sponsored students themselves pay for the full costs of these books. There are many teachers who do not follow the official timing of lessons or lectures. They come late to classes and leave after teaching for a short time; maybe 20 minutes or 30 minutes instead of the official timing of 100 minutes! Some teachers have even been skipping their lessons. Do not be surprised because Abood Al-Sawafi himself is a big liar, a cheat and a dishonest person. His "obsession" with money has blinded him completely. In all his meetings and discussions, the only thing which matters to him is money, money, and more money. He has really destroyed A’Sharqiyah University as a higher education institution. Instead of attracting students to the university, a large number of students have dropped out or left for other colleges and universities. When you talk to him, you feel he is a very “superficial person”. He does not have the slightest knowledge of academic programs or academic issues. What is more than worse is that he behaved like a child! In all meetings, he would play with his mobile most of the time like a child making the attendees feel insulted and disrespected.?

The biggest problem is that the situation has not been improved since Abood Al-Sawafi was sacked. It has continued to deteriorate as corrupt and dishonest senior managers like Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi have continued the process of destruction, chaos and triviality.

Worthless Degrees and Certificates

Anybody who has the simplest idea about employment opportunities in Oman and in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries would understand the dangerous trend of deception and cheating practiced by corrupt and trivial senior managers at A’Sharqiyah University by illegally making Arabic the medium of instruction instead of English. If university graduates in Oman and the GCC do not possess a good command of English, then their chances of getting employment in the private sector are almost zero.?Companies go around the colleges and universities in Oman to interview senior students for employment opportunities with them. The first thing they look for is the students’ level of English and whether their program of study is taught in English. If the students’ command of English is very weak or their degrees and certificates are not in English, companies will never recruit them. This is because most of the companies and corporations working in Oman and the GCC countries are multinationals and they deal with global customers who mostly use English for communication.?This tells us what a bleak future awaiting the students of A’Sharqiyah University after graduation. They are being deceived and cheated by all the decision-makers who are in charge of the academic programs at the University. Where are the officials of the Ministry of Higher Education? They are fast asleep in their ivory towers in Muscat, very far away from A’Sharqiyah University which you need a helicopter to reach.

It is no surprise that the vast majority of the male graduates of A’Sharqiyah University work now as "taxi drivers” and the female graduates as “housewives”. The rosy future they were promised when joining the University has always been a big nasty lie. This is how trivial universities behave.

Deception and Dishonesty: Bribery, Cheating

There is a great deal of forgery, deception, and bribery going on relentlessly at A’Sharqiyah University in Oman making it one of the most corrupt higher education institutions in Oman and the world. There has been forgery of students’ grades, employees’ salaries, purchase receipts and documents, teachers’ qualifications, tuition fees, numbers of students at the colleges, HR documents, financial statements and bank accounts, salaries, and bonuses.

Many senior managers and their puppets at the University go on expensive, luxurious, and useless trips around the world at the expense of A’Sharqiyah University wasting the shareholders’ money as well as the public money. Unfortunately, the Internal Audit has a long history of dishonesty writing fake reports about the internal operations and has been conspiring with Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi to write dishonest reports to conceal this forgery and deception in return for large salaries and renewal of work contract.

Some senior managers like Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi take bribes from as many people as they can deceive. They take bribes from teachers, students, clients, and even the bus drivers who sign contracts with A’Sharqiyah University to transfer students from the dormitories to the University and vice versa.

Trivial Testing Infrastructure

It is very damaging that the infrastructure for testing is inadequate or non-existent at A'Sharqiyah University as most of the buildings have been designed for teaching (not testing) or as a luxury hotel for top executives and managers. The buildings of the University have been designed to offer maximum comfort and luxury to the top executives, managers, and administrative staff as if they were building a 5-star hotel for top officials instead of an academic campus. You can hardly find spacious exam rooms where you can arrange the seating of students at a distance and in such a way as to prevent cheating in tests and exams. So teachers have no alternative but to arrange the tests and exams in the same classrooms they are assigned for teaching. The timetables themselves do not allow the teachers to seek support from other teachers in proctoring or marking. Most teachers feel very unhappy and uncomfortable conducting tests and exams for their students, especially when these students are difficult to control in normal teaching sessions.

To disregard all the requirements above, and you still want to realize your goals and achieve success in teaching and education is very unrealistic, very stupid, and a waste of time and money. Regrettably, this is what is happening now in all colleges and programs at A'Sharqiyah University where the blame for failure is placed entirely on the shoulders of the teachers rather than on the absence of robust academic programs.

Another damaging aspect of testing is the bitter fact that most of the teachers, especially expatriate teachers, are afraid of catching students cheating or preventing them from cheating as this will create big problems for them and will certainly mean the end of their work contract. This is exactly the situation at A'Sharqiyah University in Oman where I worked as an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL and as the Director of the Language Center and Foundation Program for many years. I caught many students and teachers cheating in different ways and reported them to the Registration and Examination Committees. Many trivial and corrupt senior managers like Abood Al-Sawafi, Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi were unhappy about this catch. I was shocked that they used to take no action at all against the students or the teachers. On the contrary, they used to renew the work contracts of the who used to leak the exam questions or help the students cheat during tests and exams. After a while, I realized that they were not serious about any sort of education to be offered and in fact they were running "gangs" of some students and teachers who used to facilitate cheating, leaking exam questions, and forging students' grades in return for money, favors, and sex. The whole system is completely broken.

Forgery of Grades

It was not a great shock to me to find out that Abood Al-Sawafi had forged his son’s (Salim Al-Sawafi’s) grades and placed him on the Advanced level of the Foundation Program instead of the Intermediate level because I knew that Abood Al-Sawafi has always been, and will always be, a rogue and corrupt person. He has always forged students’ grades and documents wherever he takes up a senior position which enables him to do so in any college or a university in Oman.

It is a sad fact that some senior managers at A'Sharqiyah University abuse their powers at all levels of education and trade grades for money, favors, sex, and all sorts of fraud resulting in a very damaging situation that undermines the effectiveness of the education system in most countries of the world. It is another sad fact that many departments and colleges are being run, or are influenced, by corrupt people who, mistakenly, feel they are powerful enough to commit the crimes of forgery of students' grades without being held accountable for their actions. They either do this forgery directly and change the grades themselves or they do this indirectly and ask the teachers to change the grades through threats and intimidation. This is very detrimental to the success of the whole process of education and the delivery of quality education to our students. It is also one of the main reasons for the deterioration of the academic reputation and image of A'Sharqiyah University in Oman.

Widespread Plagiarism

There is a close link between plagiarism and corruption both of which involve cheating, lying, dishonesty, and lack of integrity. So you need to look first at what the senior managers do and how they behave before you can tell whether there is plagiarism in the institution or not. You do not need to go far. When the senior managers indulge in all sorts of cheating, lying, forging students’ grades, conspiring against honest and hard-working teachers and staff, then you will certainly find that plagiarism is widespread and talking about putting an end to it is really meaningless and pointless.??

What makes things more than worse is the fact that many senior managers have nothing to do with higher education. They do not possess the slightest information about how a higher education institution is to be run and conduct business. They are incompetent and inefficient and are concerned about making profits for the investors rather than offering quality education to their students. They have crept into their senior management positions through personal relationships with the investors or with the Board of Directors and Board of Trustees; not through academic qualifications or leadership qualities. We do not expect such corrupt senior managers with their “fish-market mentality” to care about plagiarism or about anything else.

They throw everything on the shoulders of the teachers to tackle and solve. It is no surprise then that the problem of plagiarism has been getting more acute and has created a toxic academic environment in institutions run by such corrupt senior managers.

Plagiarism is a serious problem in higher education institutions whether they are state-run or private. It is a problem with far-reaching consequences for all specializations, especially the sciences. The problem is getting worse every year at A'Sharqiyah University due to the non-existence of any sort of software that may help the professors and teachers to detect plagiarism because of the stingy policies of the trivial and corrupt senior managers at this university.

Dancing with Wolves

When you join A'Sharqiyah University as a student or a teacher, by mistake or bad luck, you do not really join a higher education institution. You join a camp of senior managers who behave exactly like wolves in a jungle. They want to eat you in any way they can. They take away your allowances, your travel tickets, your salary, and even your clothes. They waste your time in trivial meetings and activities and they do not respect you as a student or an academic or a member of staff. They look down on you all the time and treat you as a hired mercenary and a slave.

At the end of each academic year, a number of teachers and employees in many higher education institutions all over the world get fired or hired. This is a normal process to refresh the organization and place it on the right track to achieve its strategic goals. The society and the educational authorities expect the process to be consistent with higher education standards of objectivity, fairness, and the genuine interests of the public and the organization itself. Regrettably, Abood Al-Sawafi and Hamed Al-Hajri, stupid, incompetent and corrupt as they are, have always exploited this process to?settle scores?with their colleagues?and take revenge upon those who disagree with them for academic reasons or hinder their triviality, thievery and corruption.

Teachers and employees are to be the priority in the workplace. They should not be subjected to blackmail and smear campaigns by corrupt, incompetent, and inefficient managers like Hamed Al-Hajri, and Mohammed Al-Barashdi who always threaten their teachers of revenge and blackmail if they leave A'Sharqiyah University and move to another university or institutions. In fact, Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi always use threats and intimidation against the teachers and employees even after they leave the University. This is very detrimental to justice and the basic concepts and principles of human rights as determined by the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

It is very difficult to fully comprehend the logic behind the current practices of the top managers and some line managers at A'Sharqiyah University who ignore the problems of the teachers and employees and use threats and intimidation in the workplace. We do not see these mafia tactics in any modern university or organization. These tactics do not fit any higher education institution in any way; they are not more than outdated tools for slavery and exploitation of the Middle Age. ?

There is hardly any freedom of expression, academic or non-academic, of any sort at A'Sharqiyah University in Oman. The moment you disagree or you 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 and even if the university is in dire need of your services. You find out, to your astonishment, that the senior managers “are?the guidelines”?and they are?“above the?law”. They are given?a blank cheque?to represent the college and the university even if they are completely wrong and against the official educational policy and they are destroying the university. It does not matter as long as they are able to persuade the “investors” that what they do will make profits, which is completely untrue. They themselves know and we all know that any higher education institution that does not have a good academic reputation can never make profits in the long run and will certainly go, one day, down the drain. At A'Sharqiyah University, if you do not behave like a wolf, the wolves will eat you.

If you were not a wolf, you would be eaten by wolves.

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Conclusions

The complexities of a global and dynamic business world, where non-economic and economic concerns coexist, ethics can play 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 trivial senior managers in businesses and organizations. This naturally costs the organization a great deal of its reputation, image, and human resources as it has been the case with A’Sharqiyah University in Oman.

Higher education is a lucrative business all over the globe. But, as with any business, there are rogue senior managers who have no moral values or work ethics. All they are after is making huge profits at the expense of our students and their future. This is why we need to stand up and expose these wicked, dishonest, and selfish managers.

There?are too many episodes and documents certifying that Hamed Al-Hajri, Mohammed Al-Barashdi, and some other senior managers at A’Sharqiyah University are stupid, incompetent, reckless, ruthless, corrupt, trivial, and superficial. When you talk to them, you feel they are very superficial people who do not have any deep knowledge about academic programs or academic issues or quality education. They are trivial, ignorant, vulgar, rotten in mentality, and uncivilized in behavior.

The reputation of A’Sharqiyah University has been going down the drain and the students, their families, the teachers and the community at large have come to know a great deal about what has been happening and what sort of damage being inflicted by trivial senior managers like Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi. It makes you feel very sad to come to know that everyone associated with the University is paying a very heavy price for the incompetence, bad management, and triviality of this university.

Quality education in higher education institutions has become a real concern for all educational authorities in almost all countries. All over the world, there is an increasing interest in quality and standards, reflecting both the rapid growth of higher education and its cost to the public and the private purse. Accordingly, if a country is to achieve its aspiration to be a dynamic and knowledge-based economy, then its higher education will need to demonstrate that it takes the quality of its programs seriously and is willing to put in place the means of assuring and demonstrating that quality.

When a college or a university, anywhere in the world, is run by a gang of thieves and trivial, unqualified, incompetent and dishonest people like Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi who are academically and morally bankrupt and take arbitrary decisions based on fabricated documents rather than on actual facts, then the whole process of higher education does not really mean anything except a waste of time and money.

Higher education is one of the most important public priorities for any modern-day nation. It is regarded as the guardian of national culture and the main factor in economic growth and an indispensable engine for the realization of the public and individual aspirations. It cannot be left for trivial, incompetent, and unqualified senior managers like Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi to make arbitrary decisions and messy plans for the sole purpose of making profits at the expense of the future of our students.

All the systems at A'Sharqiyah University are completely broken now rendering it one of the most chaotic and toxic working places of higher education in Oman and the world because of corrupt and trivial senior managers like Hamed Al-Hajri and Mohammed Al-Barashdi. For them, anything goes. If it does not go, then you, as a serious academic, should go. At A'Sharqiyah University, if you do not behave like a wolf, the wolves will eat you.

If you were not a wolf, you would be eaten by wolves.

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