Maharashtra: Over 3 million students graduate every year from our higher education system, ready to either plunge into the job market or pursue further studies. While applying for further studies or for their dream jobs, a graduate requires his degree certificate to manifest completion of required minimum qualification. Every year many of these just graduated candidates miss excellent opportunities due to inordinate delays in getting their degree certificate. At times making several rounds to their Institution or University, paying “extra” money finally gets them their well deserved due which has been earned by them.

On the other hand, large Universities in India manage a huge pool graduating students every year and it is not easy to distribute the final Convocation Degree certificate since they are not collected by all students on a particular day. On top of it, there are rampant practices of fake degree certificates which hit the headlines every year. As a result, Universities struggle to maintain the sanctity of their processes amidst the administrative pressures that they face.

A research by MeritTrac research team on 200 graduates passed out between 2007 to 2010 throws some interesting facts about this process of getting the degree convocation certificate.

•             More than 81% of the students who have received their degree certificate said that there was a delay in getting their certificate, with 60% of them facing a delay of over 6 months

•             About 86% respondents said that they had to do a lot of running around to get their degree certificate

•             Around 23% of the students indicated that they faced problems with incorrect information (wrong spelling of names, etc.) in the final certificate that they got

•             A whopping 92% respondent expressed their displeasure with the system thought that usage of technology like online application to be implemented by the Universities.

It is in this context that MeritTrac is bringing out another innovation from its stable – CertiTrac.

CertiTrac is India’s first technology-led solution for secure distribution of digital Convocation Certificates. It is a first-of-its-kind service that enables University Graduates to access their Certificate online, without having to personally visit either the Institution or the University.

Based on their University Registration number and a combination of their personal details, students have the option to pay the Convocation fees either online or by way of Demand Draft. The online payment of the certificate fees can be made either by Credit Card or Debit Card or through Net-Banking. Once the payment is successful, and the details are authorized by University officials, the e-Convocation Certificate will get generated in ‘preview mode’ for the students. They will then be able to preview the certificate and verify that the certificate is correct in all respects. Subsequently, post confirmation, the final e-Convocation Certificate is generated and available for the student to print or download. Immediately, a request is generated to print and dispatch the Original Degree Certificate. At every stage of the process, the candidate is kept informed of the status of his application via emails and SMSes.

With secure layers of access and verifications at every stage built into the platform, this provides a secure, scalable way of distributing the Digital Certificates. The entire process of verification and approval by the University officials is also automated in the backend, thereby eliminating any possibility of delays. As a part of this solution, MeritTrac will also set-up processing desks at Universities for specific duration of distribution of these Certifications.

This unique service not only benefits the students immensely, but also helps in eliminating unnecessary administrative procedures and associated delays, at either the University or the affiliated Institution.

Bangalore University is the first University to implement this service using CertiTrac – where the payment gateway is provided by HDFC Bank. The Hon. Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University – Prof N. Prabhu Dev who launched this service recently, promised his students: “No more standing in queues; no more delays; no more repeated follow-up visits”.

Madan Padaki, Co-founder and CEO of MeritTrac said that “this unique first-of-its-kind service is another example of technology-based services that helps in improving the administrative processes in Universities, eases loads and ultimately benefits the students. We are extremely excited about platform and its possibilities – we are also glad to have already signed up significant customer in the form of Bangalore University for this service.”