ISLAMABAD The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has started the process of sending degrees of Members of National and Provincial Assemblies to local as well as foreign universities for verification. It has been learnt that out of 1,095 degrees of MNAs and MPAs, which have been handed over to the HEC by the Election Commission of Pakistan, 934 will be sent to the universities for verification by Monday or Tuesday. The HEC has also sent 161 degrees back to the Election Commission, as either these were not readable or the MPs have submitted the degrees of their fathers or brothers instead of their own documents. The HEC has not received 18 degrees of different MPs yet, the HEC officials informed. It is worth mentioning that these are the photocopies of the degrees, therefore the HEC will send them to the concerned universities for verification. The officials have been working even on off-days since they have received the information and universities have also been asked to verify the degrees on priority basis. Meanwhile, the officials of ECP have claimed that the ECP has handed over 840 degrees of Members of National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies to the HEC for verification on May 25 and 228 on June 12 but so far the HEC has not been able to verify a single degree. They claimed that they had received 140 misprinted and illegible degrees from HEC. In the meantime, the universities have been asked to verify the degrees of the teaching faculty as well but the All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations (FAPUASA) has announced to boycott the move of HEC in all public sector universities. The association has decided to disobey the directives on refusal of HEC to fulfil their demands. They have been demanding to postpone the new criteria of appointment, which, they believe, has been imposed while ignoring ground realities.