HEC and MoFA Sign MoU to Link Attestation Systems and Verify Degrees Digitally

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The Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set up digital degree verification between their attestation systems. The aim is to let HEC-attested academic credentials be checked directly through a secure link between the two bodies.

The MoU is an agreement of intent. It does not say when the connection will go live.

What the MoU says

According to HEC, the MoU provides for secure, API-based integration between the attestation systems of the two institutions. An API (application programming interface) lets one software system ask another a question and get an answer without a person in between. In this case, the question is whether a degree carries a valid HEC attestation.

Executive Director HEC Prof Dr Zia Ul Haq and Foreign Secretary Asim Iftikhar Ahmad signed the document. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar and HEC Chairman Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad Akhtar witnessed the signing, along with senior representatives of both organisations.

Where the two offices sit in the process

HEC has recently moved its own side online. It now runs a fully online, paperless degree attestation system that removes the need to visit HEC offices or submit original documents. Under that process, the applicant’s details are checked against NADRA records, the university verifies the credentials against its own records, and HEC issues an e-Attestation Certificate after a final review.

MoFA’s role comes after that step. One applicant, writing publicly, says MoFA requires university degrees to be HEC-attested before they go through its authentication and apostille process. That is a user’s account, not an official statement, but it matches how the two offices are generally understood to work together.

Why the link matters

A credential passes through several offices before an employer or university abroad accepts it. If each office checks the previous one by looking at a stamped document, every stage depends on paper or PDFs that can be altered or lost. A direct system-to-system query lets MoFA check the status against HEC’s own record instead of trusting the copy in front of it.

For Pakistani graduates applying for jobs, study places or residency overseas, the practical gain would be fewer chances for a document to be rejected or delayed over a doubt about its origin. That outcome depends on how the integration is built, which the announcement does not describe.

This is also not HEC’s only recent data link. In July, HEC signed an MoU with the Pakistan Software Export Board to connect its degree verification system to a planned national digital workforce platform and a verified digital talent repository of students and IT professionals. Taken together, HEC’s attestation record is being wired into more systems, each with its own audience: employers in one case, the foreign service in the other.

What the announcement leaves open

HEC’s statement does not say several things. It gives no launch date. It does not say whether foreign embassies, employers or universities will be able to query the system, or only MoFA. It does not cover fees or how personal data will be protected when two government systems exchange it.

There is also a question about older records. The applicant quoted above asks why a degree already attested under the old system should have to go through verification again after the move to digital. That is one person’s complaint, and HEC has not responded to it in the material reviewed. It does point to a gap the MoU’s authors may need to address: how legacy attestations are carried into the new setup.

What to watch

Attestation works as a chain of custody, and each stamp is only as strong as the link before it. Replacing paper hand-offs with an API strengthens that link but adds new points of failure. System downtime, mismatched records and unclear rules on who can query what would all become policy problems, not just technical ones.

The test of this MoU is simple. If an applicant needs fewer steps and fewer repeat payments after the integration, it has worked. If the same documents are still requested at each counter, the API will exist, and the process will not have changed. The agreement is a necessary first step, and the details that follow will decide whether it delivers.

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