The education system has been struggling for a long time due to lack of resources, exam malpractices, fake certifications, outdated curriculum, and many other issues. Can emerging technologies have a solution? Read on.
In this blog, we shall take one rising issue – fake certifications. Obtaining a degree or course completion certificate with the current certification system isn’t hard. Counterfeit academic certificates have been a longstanding issue in the academic community. Adding to this is the boom of online courses which are taking over traditional methods of learning, questioning the validity of what we read and learn online.
As per a report by KPMG, the Indian online education industry will grow to 9.6 million users and will be worth $1.96 billion by 2021.
At the same time, the employment landscape is continuously evolving. The requirement for routine skills/competencies are declining, leading to a rise in unemployment. Companies either don’t hire or promote employees because of the lack of required knowledge or skill.
According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), unemployment in India has risen to 31 million individuals looking for jobs. Same is the case across Europe and many other countries. They also end up spending large amounts of money to verify educational certificates.
Promising to bridge the knowledge and skill gap between professionals and their job roles, educational institutions and coaching centres are promoting training programs including, technical skills development, vocational training, soft skills and much more. But the problem here is that most institutions that are offering training services are unvetted, not meeting the standards of certification, industry, quality, and employment. Furthermore, the alluring advertisements, promising a great future, inevitably attract a large number of students only to leave them with an unusable degree and lesser possibilities for growth.
So, how can we strengthen the interface among education bodies, job seekers, and the job market?
- Incorporate global standard of training and certification
- Opt for audits to acquire international recognition and accreditations
- Teach skills that employers around the world ask for
- Provide examinations that are recognised globally
- Raise standards and make graduates employable anywhere in the world
- Leverage new technologies like blockchain to bring trust and transparency
- Issue digital certificates that cannot be duplicated
- Promote skill-based learning and create job-ready people
A blockchain platform or blockchain-based digital certification system can help achieve these goals. With emerging technologies, such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and blockchain, education is no longer a domain of a siloed, centralized learning environment. The great thing about technology is that it is not just meant to solve problems, but also intended to open new perspectives, and blockchain in education is doing precisely that.
What can take it a step further?
A blockchain platform built for educational institutions, job seekers and employers to network and collaborate. When institutions, job seekers, and employers are on the same platform having full visibility to the entire education and employment ecosystem, it will promote informed decision-making and freedom of choice for all stakeholders.
At the end of a course, institutions can present graduates with a blockchain-enabled certification. This will not only help training institutes to optimize their certification processes but will also provide students, working professionals, and recruiters with transparent and immutable qualification records.
As blockchain records are stored permanently, documents such as degrees and course certificates can be secured and verified at any time. Even in cases where the institution that issued the certificates were to close, those certificates would still be verifiable against the records stored in a blockchain.
Additionally, once an institution issues a certificate, third parties do not need to check for validation since the certificate can verify itself directly on blockchain.
Adopting a blockchain platform will also mitigate common issues such as fake degree certificate scams, nepotism or favoritism of jobs and academic seats for relatives or friends, tedious certificate verification process by recruiters, and more.
Moving towards an education landscape where trust and transparency is the norm, we are levelling the playing field and presenting an opportunity to challenge the existing approaches to education and employment.
Explore the CredSure platform and see how you can be part of a revolution to lift educational standards and to bring trust and transparency back to this space, enabling skilled people across the world to have equal opportunity in the jobs they’re looking for.
