After a lapse of about three years, the Council of Ministers, during its last meeting, approved the appointment of Professor of Engineering Dr. Yousef Al-Roumi as Director of Kuwait University, at a time when the university is passing through exceptional circumstances at more than one level, so the new director is expected to be preoccupied with several files which will need his attention — educational, academic and financial, making his task very precise and complex.
Among the most prominent challenges facing Kuwait University today is the ‘budget cut’ file, and the repercussions are already visible such students objecting to reduction in summer semester budget and professors’ rewards while many are placing their hopes on Al-Roumi to work to exclude the university from budget-cut policies, reports a local Arabic daily.
On the other hand, the tendency of the Kuwait University to close the file of the transfer to the Sabah Al-Salem University City (which went into effect since 2019), through gradual transfer, the university stumbled in the process of completing that transfer and failed to implement the plan that was supposed to be in three stages, which is one of the files that need urgent attention by Al-Roumi
In addition to all that, there is another file that is no less important before the new university president, which is to align its outputs with the needs of the labor market, in light of the major changes that the market has witnessed, on the one hand, and recent developments in academic disciplines on the other hand, as well as the need to link these outputs with the initiatives of the government work program to create job opportunities for national workforce in the private and government sectors.
In the midst of these files, the university is living in an exceptional situation that is difficult to overlook, which lies in the administrative vacuum that has expanded from the position of the university director to the positions of deans so that the file of ‘placement of vacancies’ at the university deserves highest priority.
On the other hand, there is a very important task to improve the ranking of the Kuwait University among world universities in addition to other files that are no less important such as the university admission file for which the university must prepare early before it turns into a crisis.
Important files on the new manager’s desk
1 – Completion of the transfer of faculties to the university campus in Shaddadiah
2 – Placement of vacant positions of deans and heads of departments
3 – Offering new specializations needed by the public and private sectors
4 – Linking the outputs to the requirements of the government work program
5 – Excluding the university from budget reduction policies
6 – Improving the university’s ranking in international rankings
7- Resolve “university admission” early so that it does not turn into a crisis
