National database of academic certificates issued by school boards and universities
The HRD ministry on Monday, 25th July 2011, unveiled the
pilot project for creating a national database of academic certificates issued by
school boards and universities.
To begin with, this year’s Class XII results of the Central Board of Secondary Education
and the results of the Central Teacher Eligibility Test to be announced on Tuesday,
26th July 2011, have been made part of the database.
The ministry has already finalized a bill for the creation of national database.
The bill will be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament.
The National Academy Depository, the body assigned to carry out the task, will facilitate
online verification of academic awards issued by boards and universities, identifying
attempts made to use fake and forged academic certificates. Even students, who have
lost their certificates, can access the database anytime and anywhere.
CBSE has initiated the pilot project, which has been undertaken by Central Depository
Services and National Securities Depositories the only two depositories registered
with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The pilot will be available free
of cost for the first three months, and if found working satisfactorily, it may
be implemented for a small fee to be decided by the CBSE and the organization that
would like to verify certificates.
This will be a national database for all academic qualification in electronic format.
It would facilitate online verification of academic awards, and therefore we can
identify which are fake and genuine degrees, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said.
CBSE officials said adequate safeguards have been put in place to secure
certificates against unauthorized access, alteration, destruction, disclosure or
manipulation. CBSE will have access to the certificate database, and it will verify
and authenticate any specific academic qualification in the database as and when
a request is made.
Courtesy: Times of India
