The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has officially transitioned its degree attestation process to a fully digital platform, aiming to eliminate the months-long wait times that have frustrated graduates for years.
The new system replaces the traditional requirement for in-person visits and physical document submission with an automated, cloud-based verification workflow. For thousands of students, the shift is a long-overdue relief.
Previously, applicants faced grueling queues at regional centers, often traveling hundreds of kilometers only to be turned away due to missing paperwork or technical glitches. The manual verification process was notoriously slow, frequently dragging on for months while job seekers missed critical application deadlines. Under the new protocol, graduates create a profile on the HEC portal, upload scanned copies of their degrees and transcripts, and pay the processing fee through integrated banking channels.
The commission then coordinates directly with the issuing universities to verify credentials. Once cleared, the HEC issues a digitally signed attestation, effectively removing the need for a physical stamp or a courier trip.
“The goal is to remove the human bottleneck,” said a senior official familiar with the rollout. “If the university’s data is synced, the verification happens in days, not months.
We’ve cut the red tape out of the equation.” Critics, however, point to the digital divide. While the system favors urban applicants with high-speed internet, students in remote regions—where university record-keeping remains paper-based—may still face delays.
The HEC acknowledges this, noting that it is currently pressuring universities to digitize their back-end archives to keep pace with the central portal. The move is part of a broader push to modernize Pakistan’s academic infrastructure.
By moving the attestation process to the cloud, the commission expects to reduce its own operational costs while clearing a backlog that, at one point, exceeded 50,000 pending applications. Whether the portal can handle the daily traffic without crashing under the weight of thousands of simultaneous logins remains the primary concern for the coming weeks. For now, the HEC has set a 15-day turnaround target for all new applications a bold promise that, if kept, will fundamentally change how Pakistani graduates enter the job market.
