Ethiopia to build student and teacher credentials on blockchain

According to a report, the government of Ethiopia discovered over 200,000 fake degrees.

Since some of these degrees were awarded by colleges, the government is considering invalidating some degree certificates, the vast majority of which are retained by government officials.

However, more than five million students in 3,680 primary and secondary schools across Ethiopia are expected to receive their digital IDs in the coming months as the government and Cardano work together to create a blockchain database of the country’s student and teacher credentials.

Blockchain is considered to be a solution to the country’s education sector fraud and fake degree cases due to its transparency and immutability.

In 2021, the Ethiopian government will partner with research and engineering firm Input Output Global (IOG) to launch a digital student identity program on the Cardano blockchain network.

According to John O’Connor, director of African operations at the IOG, the Ethiopian government is enthusiastic about the program. Cardano works closely with the country’s Ministry of Education in almost every aspect.

IOG has been tasked with designing, developing and maintaining the solution on Cardano’s public blockchain platform.

O’Connor stated that the program’s benefits and features, such as verifiable degrees and digitization of the entire workflow, are invaluable to the government.

According to the IOG, digital IDs are used to store the educational records of students and teachers. In the long term, the government hopes to solve the problems plaguing Ethiopia’s education system, such as fraud, fake degrees and forged credentials.

Up to 750,000 teachers will also have access to the system, using their digital IDs to generate and store records and track students’ academic performance.

O’Connor hopes that other African countries will adopt the system, which gives students a digital identity that can monitor their progress throughout their education and career.

According to the IOG, blockchain is the most promising technology to address key African problems such as poor governance, porous health systems, damaged agricultural value chains, centralized finance and skewed education systems. In each of these ecosystems, verifiable digital identity is said to be at the heart of credibility.

The program will largely depend on Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education operating an entire network node, with schools accessing this node via a light client operating on the Cardano blockchain system.

“It works in conjunction with the government’s unique identification number system,” O’Connor said

The previous contract with the government called for IOG to serve five million students in primary and secondary schools across 3,680 schools.

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