If you think these ijazat are only given to "deserving" students, then you are severely mistaken. They carry no academic value whatsoever and are simply a means of carrying on our tradition. In fact, they can often be detrimental in that students often waste their timing chasing after these ijazat rather than focusing on what is more important.
jazakallah khairan godiali this is very true. I call them candy ijazahs. This trend was primarily set by the traditionalist movement to gain some credibility. I have ijazah from so and so, so im a big shot etc. It does not really matter who a person has ijazah from or in what texts. What actually matters is that one has mastered the topics. I myself have ijazah in a few texts and I can't even read arabic without iraab....some of the texts I have ijazah in probably most ulema cannot even understand them. I myself am clueless about the topics. An ijazah is just a form of barakah and nothing more. Even people sleeping in classes were given ijazahs and sometimes in the traditional way mashaikh would give ijazahs to whole cities, families, wife and children.....i.e. it was just for barakah in most cases.