STUDENTS in the country are often asked to get their university degrees attested by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for various purposes. The office fee is Rs7,000 for the attestation of one degree and transcript, and if a photocopy of the same document is also to be attested, then the amount goes up to around Rs10,000.

The troubles for a student do not end here. A student needs to apply online for attestation on a sluggish website, and one has to spend up to four hours to complete the process, which includes several irrelevant questions, like the starting and ending dates of matriculation. Who can remember these dates exactly? One only can mention the years, but the website asks for dates. I wonder who the genius was who wanted to collect such utterly meaningless information.

The HEC regulates universities countrywide, and it is the commission`s responsibility to bound all universities to issue only genuine degrees, and if any university is issuing a fake degree or is not fulfilling criteria, HEC should take action against that university. Why should it make students suffer by asking them to go through this torture of getting their degrees attested by paying exorbitant fee? Or is it a money-making tool for HEC? If HEC considers attestation of degrees essential, it should attest them free of cost. Or, it can ask universities to put all previous students` record on their websites so there will be no need to have the degrees verified.

The present system seems to be a revenue generation activity rather than a serious effort to ensure degrees are notfake.

Anwar Ahmad Karachi