The Higher Education Commission (HEC) established its e-portal to simplify the processes a Pakistani student has to go through. Register through your CNIC, and you can have your degrees attested, or you can apply for research grants on your ongoing or upcoming researches. You can also apply for local and foreign scholarships. Foreign scholarships are vast. You can find commonwealth scholarships, Chinese, Hungarian, and many more.
HEC e-portal track record
But while the portal’s idea is fantastic, many problems exist with it. And considering we come from a nation where we prefer doing work on-site, not trusting technology, the e-portal glitches fuel that myth. Moreover, now that the e-portal is in place, HEC has transferred all its services to the portal.
So, if you cannot resolve the glitches of the portal, you cannot avail of the services HEC offers. And this puts the students in a troubling spot. But guess what, this is not a recent issue. The problems with HEC e-portal go back at least 3 to 4 years.
Kindly update department and degree title on #HEC eportal @usindh . We r facing problems in filling academic profile as did masters frm #SU pic.twitter.com/SECWFHD7DH
— Mir Hazar 🇵🇰 (@mirhazarpk) January 2, 2017
Even now, the e-portal repeatedly throws problems towards the users. And the students have to deal with them. And this sucks if you have a looming deadline for a scholarship application. So the aspiring candidates are left with no choice but to wait for another year for the process to begin yet again. One whole year wasted.
@hecpkofficial please extend the date, hec eportal was inaccessible later in the evening yesterday. Couldn't submit, my application was saved. Tried for more than 90 mins, when portal normalized date passed 🙁
— Muhamm Zahid Ashraf (@ZahidAshraf5) October 1, 2019
Types of problems
It seems just like elections where even dead people’s CNIC is seen voting, HEC e-portal faces similar phenomenon, not the same though. I mean not precisely dead people, but the first time users, upon registering, find their CNIC already registered.
@hecpkofficial kindly resolve this issue, I have been trying to register on HEC eportal for the 1st time in life, while it shows there is an existing account with this I'd. pic.twitter.com/7aYbrtvNyF
— AMIR RAHMAN (@swatstar86) October 29, 2020
We have already mentioned that HEC has wholly transferred all the services to the e-portal, so those in dire need of degree attestation right away experience difficulties if the server starts giving errors. When students are already worried about their education issues, they have to deal with ‘500 server error’ as well.
@HEC_Pakistan Unable to sign up on eportal. Nothing happens on clicking Send Code & when I checked the network tab I noticed that it is throwing 500 server error.
It would be great if guys can share some details about any other possible way to get my degree verified/attested?— Junaid Ahmed (@junaidahmed501) January 19, 2020
And the portal crashing continues:
@HEC_Pakistan @PakistanHec eportal crashed due to heavy traffic, any chance of extension in last date for Commonwealth Scholarship?
— Waseem Akram (@wasiioo) September 30, 2019
Who it hurts
The e-portal keeps locking itself as well. And considering they already have server issues, logging back in an ordeal in itself.
But let’s think about who this whole list of problems is affecting. It is financially needy who need the government’s support to continue or finish their studies. One example of a scholarship program in the current case is the Ehsaas Undergraduate Scholarship. The local scholarship program is designed to help people from lower SECs to get an education. However, due to the e-portal problems, most of them fail to do so. Now, they can complain and be issued with a ticket number, and HEC gets back to them. But what’s the point if the deadlines have passed?
Nice
But they failed to facilitate the vulnerable Community and eradicate the rich from BISP and #Ehsaasprogram
I m sorry for u too that lot of vulnerable r still not getting govt support.— Muhammad javed iqbal (@DeserthunterPTI) October 30, 2020
Meanwhile, those who come from wealthy backgrounds, as this Twitter user presumes, are getting through it without difficulty because they do not face the same issues with the portal as the financially underprivileged people face.
So this leaves us with the question: When will these problems get resolved?
Stay tuned to Brandsynario for the latest news and updates!
