Here comes your education ID

Have you ever lied in your CV while appearing for a job interview? Think again. Soon, you will not be able to fake your degrees. Or for that matter, you will not have to spend sleepless nights over losing your certificates of academic excellence.

The Union ministry of human resource development (HRD) is going ahead with its plans to create and maintain a national electronic database of academic records and awards at no cost to central and state governments. And Karnataka has taken the lead in this initiative, says M Madan Gopal, secretary, state department of higher education. HRD ministry has proposed the National Academic Depository (NAD) Bill, 2010, to facilitate the digitisation of academic records and the bill is likely to be tabled during the next parliamentary session.

The proposed NAD mandates universities, higher education institutions, CBSE and state boards of education to entrust academic awards with an authorised depository. Such an entity will be appointed under the legislation for secure storage, authenticated access, online verification and efficient retrieval while ensuring confidentiality and authenticity.

Says Madan Gopal: “Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal discussed the NAD Bill with secretaries for higher education. We discussed the same with our higher education minister Aravind Limbavali and the minister has accepted Sibal’s proposal.”

The NAD Bill, 2010, when implemented will root out fake certificates from our education system. “When the bill is implemented, candidates will no longer be able to use fake academic certificates,” says Gopal. Hunting for jobs, too, will become a less taxing affair since prospective employers can verify educational certificates online.

NAD will make it possible to verify documents online when candidates appear for interviews. It will help both candidates and the company. Most companies appoint an HR person to check the authenticity of certificates. Soon, the practice of employers sending certificates for verification to universities, too, will stop.

An electronic database of academic records will also kill the fake certificate racket in the state. Last year, the Central Crime Branch (CCB) busted five such rackets in the city. Says K Nagaraju, inspector, CCB: “Five is not a small number because, in each case, we recovered more than 2,000 fake certificates, issued in the names of various national universities.”