Malaysia Rolls Out DLT Certificate Verification to Fight Degree Fraud

The Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE) is now using Blockchain to fight degree fraud in order to maintain the reputation and ethics of universities across the country.

The MoE revealed that it will widely apply NEM Blockchain technology during the issuance and verification exercise for university degrees. This system will be called "e-Scroll." The effort of the distributed ledger technology (DLT) application was argued early 2018 by the Council of ICT Deans of Malaysian universities.

The e-Scroll system is powered by LuxTag, a solutions provider which enables commercial enterprises and their clients to safeguard the authenticity and ownership of their precious assets by offering genuine digitised certificates on the NEM DLT.

Analog to Digital Migration

The system is designed to fight the increasing occurrence of false degrees circulating in the country, some of which are obtained online especially from "diploma mills." False educational certificates constitute various dangers to the community in regard to significant sectors such as healthcare sector being filled with staff whose expertise is questionable, besides being of great disadvantage to honest and authentic students, according to the report by The Medium.

Currently, universities in Malaysia receive hundreds of thousands of requests from across the globe regarding questions related to verification of academic certificates. This has so far been difficult because it's done via emails or through telephone chats. e-Scroll, NEM-based, will solve this problem.

This system has unique features regarding verifying and handling traceability. If the need for verification arises, a QR code that is printed on the certificate is possible to be scanned from any corner of the globe provided the internet connection is available, according to the MoE.

The e-Scroll system will have to thoroughly verify all the degree certifications of all PhD graduands in November 2018, during the initial stage of its implementation, in the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), where the data will be embedded on the DLT.

Members of the Consortium

The Malaysian MoE has further rolled out a DLT consortium, and the membership is drawn from all recognized universities in the nation. The main aim of this project is to help during the training of academics and best students in DLT. It is also planning to create Apps in DLT, greatly setting this a large revenue generator for all member educational institutions.