Due to rampant academic fraud, the Kenyan government and IBM have moved the certificate issuance system to the blockchain

The Kenyan government is working on building an immutable and transparent education management system powered by blockchain technology. The Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) of Kenya has established a partnership with IBM to help schools and other educational institutions issue academic certificates on the blockchain cloud network.

The Association of International Educators (NAFSA) recently released a report, which revealed that academic fraud has become a fatal blow to top universities, according to more than 10,000 association members and 3,500 educational institutions in 150 countries around the world.

The report states:

George Gollin, a professor at the University of Illinois who is investigating fake colleges such as St. Regis, estimates that American diploma fraud agencies sell as many as 200,000 fake certificates each year.

In order to limit the issuance of illegal academic documents and combat the fake certificate market, the Kenyan government and IBM have established a close partnership and jointly launched a diploma issuance platform based on the blockchain network.

IBM Blockchain

The ICT sector will adopt IBM's enterprise-grade blockchain solution, which is currently being used by top companies and financial institutions to create a more secure and transparent operating system.

Speaking at Strathmore University in Nairobi, Nyimbi Odero, innovation advisor for the ICT sector, said that soon, students’ exam results and school performance will no longer be unfairly manipulated. More importantly, Odero also pointed out that the blockchain platform can also authorize companies or other relevant departments to effectively verify students’ academic certificates.

Odero said:

The Kenyan government and IBM are working together to develop a blockchain-based education certificate management system, so if you are a Kenyan student, it is impossible to fake your exam results.

Security Question

To date, the IBM blockchain solution and any of its products have not been tested at a commercial level. No major enterprise or bank has announced successful testing or release of products based on the IBM blockchain. Therefore, the Kenyan government must consider other viable products, such as Blockcerts based on the Bitcoin blockchain, as the Bitcoin network is more secure.

Launched in October this year, Blockcerts is an open academic document architecture built on the Bitcoin network. Inspired by the MIT Media Lab project, Blockcerts puts security first and creates a decentralized academic certificate issuance system.

Security is the most important factor for the Kenyan government's certificate issuance system. Systems that use private networks such as IBM are likely to eventually evolve into centralized databases, exposing the weaknesses of the blockchain platform and suffering from problems such as data theft.