Final ruling: The title of engineer is officially granted to graduates of technical colleges

In a significant judicial development affecting a wide segment of national talent, the Administrative Court of Appeal at the Board of Grievances a final and enforceable ruling obligating the competent authorities to classify holders of bachelor’s degrees from technical colleges under the title “ engineer ” explicitly, without attaching any additional descriptions that diminish their professional value or distinguish them from university graduates.

The rationale behind the ruling and the victory of the supreme orders

This ruling brought to a close years of legal and administrative debate surrounding the job titles of graduates from technical colleges. The court based its decision on the supreme legal precedent of the Royal Decree issued in 1409 AH (1989 CE), which clearly and unequivocally stipulated complete equality in rights and employment benefits between graduates of technical colleges and their counterparts from university engineering colleges.

The judicial department explained that attempting to circumvent this classification by adding adjectives such as “technical” or other sub-classifications is a clear violation of the system and creates an unjustified distinction that harms the established legal positions of graduates, stressing that the issuance of the new engineering professions practice system does not cancel previous royal orders, but rather the regulatory texts must be integrated to serve the public interest.

Background of professional conflict and the importance of the decision

The significance of this ruling lies in its historical and thematic context. For years, graduates with bachelor's degrees in engineering suffered from the ambiguity of their professional classification, often resulting in their exclusion from the engineering profession and its associated benefits, and their placement in job ranks that did not correspond to their academic qualifications and the extensive training they had received. This discrepancy hindered their full integration into the engineering job market, despite the market's pressing need for these specialized skills.

This judicial fairness comes to restore things to their proper order, based on official correspondence and previous records that had technically and systematically acknowledged the right to this title, but the practical application faced bureaucratic obstacles that this final ruling removed.

Expected impact on the Saudi labor market

This ruling is expected to have a broad positive impact on the labor market in Saudi Arabia, as it will enhance the attractiveness of technical and vocational education, which is one of the main targets of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. Equalizing graduates in title and benefits will encourage more young people to enroll in technical colleges, thus contributing to bridging the gap in the engineering and industrial sectors.

Unifying the classification under the title “engineer” will open new horizons for graduates in the public and private sectors, and remove the psychological and social barriers associated with lower-level titles, thus driving the wheel of national development by making the most of highly qualified engineering competencies, whether their path is academic or applied technical.