Though Higher Education Commission (HEC) is a public institute, but it acts more like a private institute, because money making seems to be its sole purpose, as it is accumulating hefty amount annually through degrees verifications, but little improvement could be seen on the part of education.
Graduates visiting the HEC for degrees verifications passed through great ordeal, because of the complicated and expensive degree verification process.
Talking to Pakistan Today, graduates of various universities said that HEC multiplied the woes of the students instead of easing their troubles. They were of the view it was quite unfair that HEC charged for degrees attestation though they have already paid fee to the relevant universities under the head of degrees verification.
The HEC is charging the attestation fee Rs 800 for each original document and Rs 500 for each Photocopy. Khanzeb Burki, a graduate, said that the degrees verification was a source of money minting for HEC or else it did not make any sense to re-verify the already verified degrees.
He said that on one hand the students were already facing great financial problems, while on the other the HEC was heavily charging for re-verification of the degrees. He said now it was a digital world so there should be a central degree verification system as the HEC had all the data of the universities, so as to ease the financial burden unto the graduate coming from remote areas.
Nouman Nafees, who did his masters from International Islamic University (IIUI), said that he wanted to have his documents attested because he was applying for a job, but he was informed that first he would have to send documents to HEC through courier service for which he has to pay.
He questions as why can’t the degree-awarding university attest its own degrees and why should anyone be made to bear the travel expenses to get his documents attested? ‘The degree-awarding institution should be the sole judge for verifying the authenticity of the document as has always been the practice;, he added. Besides, Nouman said that there should be an online database with HEC syncing from each university about the graduates.
Talking to this scribe, Dr Asim Sajjad Akhtar, an education expert, who teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University, said that the HEC did no good for the last 10 to 12 years rather creating problems because of its perverse modus operand to run the affairs.
He said that HEC was a public institution, so there was no justification to charge for certifications attestation; however he added that the commission was almost spearheaded the education privatization process.
‘HEC main task is to promote education, so it should not mint money under the guise of promotion of education’, Asim added.
HEC PRO Aayesha Ikram, in her email reply, said that the commission charged for the stamp that was placed on the degree which includes the ticket and overheads that were incurred for attestation. She said that the universities issue their degrees, they did not verify them. The verification by HEC was part of its mandate according to its Ordinance 2002 and this validation was accepted at the international level and enabled Pakistani nationals and degree holders to get employment and admissions abroad. ‘As per practice the issuing authority does not verify its own degrees, a supra accreditation authority does that, hence HEC is doing that work’, she added.
To a question about utilization of the amount, she said that the amount is sent to the recurring budget.
To another question as how much money would be collected through degree verification, she replied, ‘It is not possible to give an amount, as the number of degrees varies every month and every year.’
