Online student database to help detect fake certificates

TS first State in country to link technology with database

Telangana has become the first State in the country integrating technology with the database of its universities and potential employers giving open access to the latter to check the genuineness of the academic certificates of its students.

Any employer from any part of the world can now access the Online Verification system launched by the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) that created the database of students of the last five years passing out from its State universities. Five years’ data previous to those five years will also be uploaded soon.

“We are the first State in the country (to do this) and the initiative was taken with complaints of fake certificates coming from various companies and embassies,” said Tummala Papi Reddy, Chairman of the TSCHE.

“The Chief Minister was particular about creating this facility to keep Hyderabad’s image intact,” he said.

Access information

Potential employers and those checking the veracity of the claims can access the information by entering the hall-ticket number, year of passing and the course studied. However, only the basic details on the genuineness of information like candidate’s name, parent’s name, university, duration of the course, marks scored and the division obtained are shown and not the total details so as to protect the privacy of the candidate.

City Police Commissioner M. Mahender Reddy suggested that the TSCHE link the Aadhaar number and also the student’s photograph to the information displayed.

“We are looking into those aspects. However, there are some challenges in attaching the picture as most of them are of poor quality and uploading them is a huge task,” an official involved in the process said.

Limited users

Though database of Osmania University (OU) and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTUH), was created a few years ago, access was limited to US Embassy that wanted to verify the genuineness of the academic certificates of those applying for US visa.

Others who wanted the information had to write to the respective university.

However, the process was cumbersome, time-taking and was only on payment. But the new system offers it for free and instantly.

Efforts were under way to include the data from Agriculture University and the Medical University to bring them under the new system, and once that was done the Chief Minister would officially launch it, Prof. Reddy said.