ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Wednesday announced its decision not to disclose the names of fake degree holding politicians in future.

During the tenure of the previous management, the commission remained under criticism for disclosing the names of parliamentarians who held fake degrees.

The decision was shared with media persons by the recently-appointed HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed at a press conference.

During the tenure of former chairperson Dr Javaid Laghari, the HEC started verifying the degrees of parliamentarians on the directives of the Supreme Court.

The PPP-led coalition government, however, first tried to stop the HEC from verifying the degrees but after failing to do so it decided to devolve the HEC to provinces.

Chairman says decision aimed at bridging the gap between the HEC and the education ministry

However, the apex court declared the decision illegal. As a last attempt, the previous government withdrew the federal minister status from the HEC chairperson and placed the commission under the Ministry of Education, Trainings and Standards in Higher Education.

However, the HEC continued posting the names of the fake degree holders on its website.

Dr Mukhtar said though the HEC would continue verifying the degrees, it would not disclose the names of the fake degree holders anymore.

“Because of the policies of the former management, a huge gap was created between the ministry and the HEC. After taking over the charge, my first priority has been to bridge this gap.”

Dr Mukhtar added that during the tenure of the former management, press conferences were held to announce the names of the fake degree holders. “I believe that it was not the job of the HEC to announce the names of the fake degree holders.”

He said the HEC would verify the degrees of employees of other government departments but for that the departments would have to approach the commission and provide the degrees of the employees to it.

While talking about the budget, Dr Mukhtar said Rs43 billion had been allocated for HEC’s recurring grant and Rs20 billion for the development projects, adding this was the highest budget allocated for the HEC.

He said 7,531 overseas scholarships had been offered for MS and PhD studies till date, and 3,862 of the scholars had completed their studies.

To a question, he said efforts were being made to improve and strengthen the process of online verification of documents.

“Though the facility of attestation of degrees will be provided in provincial capitals, students should verify their degrees on time. It is observed that the students submit their documents for attestation just a week before admissions due to which hundreds of applications are received at a time and it becomes difficult for the HEC to verify and attest the degrees on time,” he said.

Talking about the prime minister’s laptop scheme, Dr Mukhtar said the first consignment of laptops would be received by June 17 and the scheme would be inaugurated by the prime minister on June 20.

“The HEC has already signed an agreement with the PTCL under which built-in internet devices will be installed in the laptops and the recipients would have to pay only Rs500 per month for the internet facility.”

He said the HEC had also been working on a smart university project. After implementation of the decision, education will be provided to students in a paper- and pen-free environment.

“We are also considering introducing four credit hours for the university students who work on ethics, social responsibility and social entrepreneurship. Consultations have been started with universities for their role in the capacity building of educational institutions located near them,” he said.

In reply to another question about the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University (Pims), Dr Mukhtar said Pims had sought Rs3 billion budget which the HEC refused to provide. In the end, the Capital Administration and Development Division arranged the amount.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2014