June 3, 2017 10:00am by David Farrar

Verifying qualifications

All universities in New Zealand and Australia are rolling out the system, called My eQuals, which allows graduates to share digital copies of their qualifications with prospective employers.

Australian universities-owned company Australian Higher Education Services is managing the service. Chief executive Andrew Trnacek said overseas studies indicated about a third of job and course applications included inflated or fake information about qualifications.

He said faking a qualification through the My eQuals system was not possible.

“We’re using the latest in encryption technology and that’s constantly being reviewed and updated so it’s not really possible for somebody to issue a fake document through the node,” he said.

Dr Trnacek said the other big motivation for introducing the system was to reduce the time and effort involved in providing and verifying graduates’ qualifications.

“It often has to get verified by a justice of the peace or similar notary, or the institution or the employer might actually pay another party to verify that degree, or contact the issuing university directly.

“So it’s long, it’s cumbersome, it’s expensive, it’s manual.”

This looks to be a very good move.

As I understand it, the graduates can allow potential employers to verify they have got the degrees they plan. But if the graduates wishes, they can also share what papers they say, and even what grades they got.

It also should prove useful for students transferring between universities.