According to a report, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in South Africa has announced that it will begin issuing blockchain-based certificates to its graduate students starting this year. Each qualification document issued by the university, according to the report, will include a QR code that will be used to verify its authenticity.
According to the report, the university is implementing a blockchain-based certification system in an effort to prevent fraud and counterfeiting of UJ-issued certificates. The university’s senior director of central academic administration Tinus van Zyl stated that:
“The public can now validate the awarded qualifications for UJ graduates without having to contact the University or go through a verification agency, simply by scanning the QR code on the certificate, and best of all, at no cost.”
Tinus van Zyl, the university’s senior director of central academic administration, is quoted in the report as explaining why the blockchain-based system is superior to the digital certificate system that UJ implemented a few years ago. According to Van Zyl, graduates at the university were using the digital certificate system to digitally access or share their certificates with prospective employers.
Using the blockchain-based system, however, prospective employers and third parties can now verify a graduate’s certificate.
Meanwhile, Kinta Burger, another UJ employee, is quoted in the report as saying that implementing the blockchain-based certificate system will protect the university’s reputation as well as the reputation of the certificates it issues.
