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University Grants Commission (UGC) mandates that all universities and higher education colleges in India have to incorporate security and issue QR code-based degree certificates

It has mandated that the situation is grave and all universities need to incorporate a QR code into degree certificates.

Top 10 points: Why UGC mandated QR code-based degree certificates make perfect sense

1. The number of unrecognized institutes and degrees in the last few years has increased. This move will help in curbing malpractices such as degree duplication or mark sheet forgery
2. Easy verification by relevant third parties
3. Providing institutes and individuals one-stop access to a student’s academic documents through QR codes
4. Helps to maintain privacy especially of the document holder and the verifier
5. QR codes are ubiquitous today and can be scanned using any smartphone
6. It will help all kinds of universities and not just those that are tech-savvy & have big IT departments or budgets
7. With QR Code it is easy to inscribe all possible details including the name and place of the institutions, the type of program, the mode of program delivery such as regular, part-time or distance and other relevant information to help establish authenticity
8. This helps in the overall objective of digitization of all the higher education certificates and degrees
9. The flexibility provided by this approach not only ensures security but also helps to bring some uniformity across the higher education system, without compromising or bypassing the National Academic Depository (NAD), which is a 24X7 online storehouse of all academic certificates, diplomas, degrees, mark sheets that are digitized and lodged by academic institutions or boards
10. Help students who apply for higher education abroad as the foreign universities and other authorities have to currently get the documents verified by the respective Indian institutions and Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) which is a time consuming and involved process