Fake degrees of parliamentarians
may just be tip of an iceberg
July 25, 2010:LAHORE: The mountain of evidence coming from country’s legislatures during the last two months or so that over 10 per cent of legislators are possessing phony degrees, as it may just be the tip of an iceberg as nobody actually knows as to how many politicians, doctors, lawyers, journalists, scientists, educationists and engineers etc may still be holding prized offices in both public and private sectors by falsifying on their resumes.
Similarly, in absence of any state oversight to determine the validity of the claims by job applicants or those seeking promotions at the departments falling within its domain, the federal government is yet to issue concrete policy guidelines to initiate action against any of the public sector employees, who may have been pompous about their foreign degrees—many of which may turn out to be mere diplomas if a thorough enquiry is conducted. In fact, no orders have surfaced yet from the government, under which it could be compulsory for all public sector departments to get the educational credentials of their respective employees verified from the degree-issuing authorities.
It goes without saying that the private sector may soon take the lead in this regard for its own good, but it is imperative that a government policy is announced for the government staffers, who are actually holding the reins of the state’s administrative machinery and framing policies. It is irony that no steps have also been taken by the federal government till date to investigate the extent of the problem and prevent the high-profile fraudsters thriving like pests on its pay roll, from playing with the lives and destiny of Pakistanis.
With Pakistan likely to be inundated with bogus educational certificates, the Education Ministry would rather do well at this point of time to take a leaf out of India’s book to curb the menace of forged degrees, instead of slating the Higher Education Commission hierarchy for exposing the counterfeiters proposing and making laws in country’s assemblies. In January 2004, the University Grants Commission of India requested all the Indian universities to get computer micro chips installed on degrees awarded to their students, in a bid to avoid the circulation of fake university degrees. The theme of this idea was to store all information pertaining to a particular student in microchips, which could then be embedded in the official degrees awarded by the university.
According to this concept, particulars like the student’s name, name of the university, title of the course, marks secured and year of passing etc, were to be stored on the chip, which could then be read through special screening devices attached to a computer to check the nuisance of sham degrees and hence minimize the chances of degrees being duplicated. This idea, though deemed extremely feasible by experts at the time it was floated, could not be executed in India because of the fact that the country had one of the largest networks of higher education found anywhere in the world with over 320 universities and 16,500 colleges falling under its jurisdiction.
Lack of finances remained the major hurdle in executing this idea of awarding hi-tech degrees in India during these last six years or so, because to implement this initiative of the University Grants Commission of India, New Delhi would then have to install the special screening devices at all venues where there was a need to verify the authenticity of the degrees.
In Pakistan’s case, given the much smaller size of its higher education network, this idea of issuing degrees with embedded microchips could at least be borrowed from India.The News
