Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), two reports on degree equivalence: the Higher Education Council session of 3 March 2026 adopting the credit-hours system; and Minister Marwan al-Halabi's statement of 10 August 2026 on simplifying and digitising equivalence
Source ID
SRC-307
Citation
Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), two reports on degree equivalence: the Higher Education Council session of 3 March 2026 adopting the credit-hours system; and Minister Marwan al-Halabi's statement of 10 August 2026 on simplifying and digitising equivalence
State news agency reports of institutional decisions and ministerial statements
Hierarchy tier
3
Published
2026
Accessed
2026-08-20
Snapshot
Both retrieved 20 August 2026 with a browser user agent, HTTP 200, 162,563 and 162,405 bytes. datePublished 2026-03-03T17:04:00+03:00 and 2026-08-10T22:53:11+03:00. Both read in full. research/ is not committed
Claims
CH7 the Higher Education Council's March 2026 decision, and the equivalence backlog
Status
READ
Version history
The register keeps changing after the book is fixed in print. Each entry below was added to this row in the order shown.
GATE ITEM E5, MADE, AND THE MARCH 2026 DECISION IS NOT WHAT THE EARLIER BOOK SAYS IT IS. Source line 1777 says that in March 2026 the Higher Education Council resolved 'to publish its equivalence criteria with complete clarity and transparency, and to build a digital application'. THE COUNCIL SESSION OF 3 MARCH 2026 DID SOMETHING ELSE: it approved launching three competitions, for teaching staff, technical staff and teaching assistants, and it ADOPTED THE CREDIT-HOURS SYSTEM IN CERTIFICATE EQUIVALENCE. Neither a transparency undertaking nor a digital application appears in this report. THE BOOK'S CHARACTERISATION IS UNSUPPORTED BY THE ONLY MARCH 2026 COUNCIL REPORT FOUND, and either a different document exists or the claim must be withdrawn. Route not yet tried: the Council's own minutes. AND THE UNDERTAKING THE BOOK DESCRIBES IS STILL UNDELIVERED FIVE MONTHS LATER, WHICH THE BOOK COULD NOT KNOW. On 10 August 2026 the minister said, on his official Facebook page, that digitisation of equivalence will come 'through launching an electronic application for certificate equivalence WHICH THE MINISTRY WILL ANNOUNCE IN DUE COURSE'. So as at 10 August 2026 it is still forthcoming, which extends the book's 'neither had happened by July 2026' by a further month on a document. THE BACKLOG IS NOW A NUMBER, AND IT IS THE FIRST STOCK FIGURE THIS PROJECT HAS FOR EQUIVALENCE. VERBATIM: the launch of the application 'will come after completing the processing of the certificates currently with the ministry, WHICH NUMBER ABOUT FOUR THOUSAND CERTIFICATES SUBMITTED FOR EQUIVALENCE FOR PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES'. So the digital application is expressly deferred behind the backlog it would help clear. AN ARITHMETIC IS AVAILABLE AND IT IS THIS PROJECT'S, NOT THE MINISTRY'S, AND MUST BE LABELLED: SRC-296 gives intake at about 100 dossiers a day on 1 May 2026 and this gives a stock of about 4,000 on 10 August 2026, so the stock is of the order of forty days of intake. The two figures are three months apart, are differently defined, being dossiers for authentication AND equivalence against certificates for equivalence for professional purposes, and NEITHER DOCUMENT PERFORMS THE DIVISION. It may be offered only as a labelled author calculation with those limits stated. TWO FURTHER SIMPLIFICATIONS, DATED AND DOCUMENTED. The ministry now verifies certificates through the official government websites of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, entering the document's code to check it directly, replacing correspondence that 'took a long time'. And on 25 April, the director of consular administration at the foreign ministry, Mohammad Yaqoub al-Omar, announced simplified procedures allowing certification of academic certificates at all Syrian missions abroad without the personal attendance of the holder or a relative. STILL NO PROCESSING TIME. The minister says the ministry will 'shorten every time period that can be shortened' and prints none, which is the third document in this register to state that durations exist while giving none.