The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) officially launched its digital certificate platform in Nigeria on Thursday, October 20, 2022, inside the Academic Inn guest House multipurpose hall at 6, Lateef Jakande Road, Agidingbi, Ikeja-Lagos.
Patrick Areghan, the head of the national office at WAEC, Nigeria, said the council is committed to its mission of encouraging academic and moral excellence, promoting sustainable human resource development and international cooperation, which is foundational to birthing the digital platform.
He disclosed that with the advent of technology, there is a need to integrate technology with students’ lifestyles.
“Today, we live in a digital world where instant satisfaction and accessibility are the ultimate. The process of receiving, retrieving, sharing, verifying or confirming academic certificates is rather cumbersome and moribund. The whole process is costly, and could be frustrating, and the only answer can be found in digital certificates!
“We are evolving to meet the demands of a changing world. We have migrated from physical registration of candidates to online registration; online verification of results and online result printouts, etc,” he stated.
The WAEC boss reiterated that the development of the new digital certificate platform is in line with the council’s continuous record of meeting global needs by using cutting-edge technology to improve candidates’ experiences as they seek to continue their education. He stressed that the mobility of the candidates is of utmost importance to the council.
Areghan explained that the new digital platform, developed in conjunction with one of the world’s foremost security technology providers, is being implemented to streamline the issuance and verification of certificates from all over the world.
“The platform involves mobile and web-based applications that is designed specifically for candidates, individuals, institutions and organisations. It holds powerful features that enable users to access, share, request, and confirm certificates. It is also used to recover candidates’ forgotten/lost examination numbers,” he noted.
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According to the Nigeria national head of WAEC the platform cannot be hacked, and this he said because since the inception of the digital world, nobody has and can be able to access the council’s site.
It is committed to prompt service delivery, and today, it has taken an important step further with the development of the digital certificate platform.
“Today, we are excited to release this platform to the public. And this will enable more 30 million certificate holders to access their certificates.
“We are very confident that this ground-breaking digital certificate platform will revolutionise the way people interact with the WAEC certificate and drastically improve the mobility of our talented students as they move forward in life, all over the world.
“The digital certificate platform, which is currently available to those who have taken the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) as far back as 1999 till date, will enable over 30 million certificate holders to access and share the original copies of their certificates from anywhere in the world. Those of 1970 – 1998 will be attended to shortly,” he assured.
Furthermore, he announce that with effective from December 2022, certificates for WASSCE for School Candidates, 2022 will be available on the digital platform, and subsequently, from next year, 2023 candidates will no longer have to wait for months before getting access to their certificates as they will be available on the digital platform immediately after the results are released.
He pointed out that the digital certificate serves the purposes as the hardcopy and that it comes with numerous added advantages.
“A digital certificate is the electronic version of an academic or physical paper certificate. It is hosted on a dedicated credential page with options to share and embed. It presents the same information with paper certificates but it has numerous advantages over and above paper certificates, with special focus on the elimination of fraud and easy accessibility,” he said.
Some of the other benefits he said are that candidates can now generate and share certificates. Hence, candidates will no longer share photocopies of their certificates with institutions and organizations. But instead, access and share copies of their original certificates, delivered straight from the WAEC database. These records are instantly confirmed and validated.
Besides, it comes with security/data protection which means that the digital certificate platform gives certificate holders the power to prevent unauthorized users from accessing their data. It is also shareable with instant delivery, which is to say that individuals can now share their digital certificates from a WAEC source instantly, regardless of the person’s location. This eliminates institutional administration delays and backlog of requests. It provides instant verification and credibility, among other benefits.
