Continuing the series, we will look at education checks in this post.
While education checks in India can cover verifying Class X and XII board certificates, typically, they are focused on verifying the higher education degrees, certificates and diplomas at undergraduate (Bachelors), post-graduate (Masters) and doctorate (PhD) levels.
The layman’s (and most common) method of verifying the academic credentials is to do a physical scrutiny of the original certificates. However, procuring or even producing the fake certificates which are identical to the genuine certificates is not a very tough task. Hence, just relying on the physical inspection and storing a photocopy in the records, is a very crude way of doing education checks.
Unfortunately, only a few of the higher education institutions have placed their graduates’ lists online. Also, the HRD Ministry sponsored National Database of Academic Qualifications is still in the development stage (this project was mentioned in one of the earlier blog post). So the only reliable option left for verifying the certificate is to go directly to the registrar’s office of the issuing university/institute. Doing this over courier/post, phone, email or via any electronic means is virtually impossible (except maybe for a handful of ‘progressive’ universities). It boils down to someone physically visiting the registrar’s office with a photocopy of the certificate (and sometimes copies mark sheets and examination hall card too!). This is the reason why education checks remain costly and time-consuming.
India is a land abundantly blessed with higher education institutions :-). Unfortunately, some of these are bogus or what is called in the industry jargon as ‘fake’ universities (as indicated by University Grants Commission)! If the degree belongs to any of these universities, the employer need not worry about going ahead with the verification process as the verification agencies too will just send back the verification request without taking it further.
Our recommendation: You have the option of verifying certificates across Class X, Class XII, Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate levels. At the minimum, you should aim to verify the highest level certificate for every employee.
