A Blockchain approach for detecting counterfeit academic certificates in Kenya

Abstract

There has been an increase in the number of people seeking to pursue higher education and secure employment in different sectors across Kenya and the world at large. Consequently, there has been an exponential increase in the number of fake academic certificates being issued. Employers end up higher less qualified staff, while education institutions admit students with lesser qualifications. This has had a negative impact on education institutions in as far as credibility is concerned and for the employers, low productivity from the under qualified staff. Several methods have been put in place by different organizations for purposes of verifying academic certificates in Kenya. However, most of the methods employed are manual processes which are time consuming, tiresome and more prone to errors. The automated processes currently in use still have loopholes that can easily be exploited to bypass the verification process. For this reason, there is need to come up with an automated solution that will ensure proper verification of academic certificates thereby upholding the credibility of our academic institutions and increasing productivity in other organizations. This research explores different strategies employed in Kenya together with their challenges, the traditional and automated systems available for verification of academic certificates and finally proposed the development of a blockchain capable application for purposes of verifying academic certificates.