WHEN the Musharraf regime introduced the condition that candidates for a legislature had to be graduates of recognised institutions, this was generally welcomed, even though literacy was barely over 30 percent. However, while many politicians either opted out of the electoral tussle because of this, and chose to put up better educated relatives, or sat the examination, others went to the degree mills of the USA or the UK, where a degree is to be had for money, or preferred to carry out simple fraud. This was highlighted after the resignation of two MNAs, Jamshed Dasti of the PPP and Manzoor Jat of the PML(Q), after the Supreme Court made it clear that it regarded their degrees as fake. It appears that this is part of an international trend, as apart from 10 Pakistani politicians, 18 politicians from other countries, as varied as Iran and Liberia, have problems with the genuineness of their qualifications. In the USA, though politicians (for whom no qualification is prescribed) do not have a problem, there are difficulties within the Nuclear Safety Administration, where manager-level officials have faked degrees. So much for the world's guarantor of nonproliferation In Pakistan, there have been several disqualifications from the provincial assemblies, but the rot extends into the federal cabinet, and even into the Presidency itself. This is a reflection of the extent that people will go to, to secure an advantage, and how degrees are not viewed as pieces of paper showing that the holder has gone through the education process, but as goods which, once obtained, guarantee something, in this case eligibility to contest an election. The government must purge itself of all those elements having any doubt about their degrees, because it must be above suspicion. It is bad enough that the non-implementation of the Supreme Court's NRO verdict has left in high office people under a cloud. The degrees scandal should not be left to make matters worse.