MHRD Is Planning Digitization of Academic Degrees By 2017

The government has started with the idea of creating an online database, where all the academic degrees/certificates would be available in an easily accessible digital format by the end of next year.

Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) conducted a national conference for generating awareness of the plan among stakeholders on Friday in New Delhi, where the Minister of HRD Mr. Prakash Javadekar said, “Establishment of a National Academic Depository is a step towards the Digitial India vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.

Secretary (Higher Education) in the Ministry Mr. Vinay Sheel Oberoi proposed that the idea was to make information available on any award to any person other than the student, “only with the explicit consent of the student.” He requested all academic institutions to get on board promptly to make the NAD a reality.

A series of training workshops are to be organised region-wise to enable a better understanding of the idea and to analyse if the proposed project can become a reality or not.

So, supposing this gets implemented.

The major positive impacts would include:

1. Eliminating the idea of false hard copies of degrees. (At least then we won’t have debates about the authenticity of the degrees of our Ministers)
2. Recruiters/academic institutions/other formal institutions¬†can verify the database to ensure the degrees are genuine, rather than relying on our current system of ‘self-attested copies’.
3. It would bring out ease in preserving and carrying one’s credentials, in a form of soft copies.(At last, you won’t have to run to find a photocopy shop, when you need some copies urgently).
4. Re-issue of documents won’t be a cumbersome process after this gets implemented.
5. Since the National Academic Depository would make degrees accessible to the respective students, those who travel overseas can receive their degrees easily without having to come back to the institution itself. (We’ve all known people like those who don’t collect their degrees for years due to the same reason :P)

It’s high time these academic certificates/degrees get verified and made easily accessible to all to pave the way for digital and forgery-free India!