Major Indian Business School Issues Blockchain Certs to Combat Fake Degrees

[Leonardo]

India’s top ten business school, SP Jain School of Global Management, has issued 1,189 blockchain-based certificates to graduands who recently obtained degrees and professional certifications.

The certificates which are now live on the Ethereum blockchain will allow prospective employers and other parties to verify the authenticity of a job seeker’s educational qualifications without having to contact the business school. The validation process is intuitive and technical know-how will not be necessary, according to Business World.

Neither will additional software or specialized equipment be required as all that a prospective employer or other parties will be needed to do is scan the QR code which is printed on the certificate.

Detailed Information
Besides the educational qualifications, the other information pertaining to a graduate that will be stored on the blockchain will include students’ portfolio, projects , nd even attendance. All this information will be available without compromising the privacy of the graduates.

“There have been various attempts globally to issue certificates on the blockchain. But so far no one has captured the complete lifecycle of the certification,” said the President of SP Jain School of Global Management, Nitish Jain. “Students’ attendance and other private data are securely stored in the school’s private blockchain and only the certification related data is exposed to the public Ethereum blockchain.”

In issuing the 1,189 blockchain-based educational certificates, the SP Jain School of Global Management joins a growing list of countries and institutions that are turning to distributed ledger technology to stem fraud related to educational credentials such as degrees and diplomas.

Malaysia and the Caribbean
Last month, Malaysia’s Ministry of Education unveiled a blockchain-based issuance and verification system for university degrees. Unlike in the case of the SP Jain School of Global Management, however, Malaysia turned to the NEM blockchain. As CCN reported at the time, this was an attempt at curbing fake degrees which place genuine students at a disadvantage as well putting the wider society in peril:

“The fake educational certificates not only disadvantage genuine students but also pose numerous dangers to society when critical sectors such as healthcare are staffed with people of questionable expertise.”

And in North America, the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) last month issued blockchain-based academic certificates to 24,000 candidates who had sat their exams mid this year. The blockchain-based e-certificates were stored and shared on the free and open-source Blockcerts Wallet in a move aimed at speeding up a ‘verification process that usually takes weeks or months’.

Source: https://www.ccn.com/major-indian-business-school-issues-blockchain-certs-to-combat-fake-degrees/