Official: Ask for original certificates

The National National

By GLENDA AWIKIAK
FORGERY and use of fake certificates can be avoided only if employers and education institutions start demanding original certificates from applicants for verification.
Measurement Service Unit (MSU) assistant secretary Packiam Arulappan said from next year, they would be collecting data and list of people reporting lost certificates and their names would be published in the media so employers and education institutions can see who those people were.
“Time is up for those forging and using fake certificates for employment and education systems because there is not just one way to identify certificates,” Arulappan said.
“In the past, we had only one system called the ‘embossed year seal’ which is a gold seal on the certificate but since 2016 more features were developed and introduced to keep all certificates coming out of MSU more secured and not duplicated easily.
“These were introduced in 2016 and is one of the 62 requirements the current Education Secretary, Uke Kombra, directed the MSD to implement to improve the examination systems in the country.”
The following security features in general education certificates include:

  • Embossing – Year seal is embossed (raised from the normal flat 2 dimensional appearance), a manual way to checking the originality has been in use 2015;
  • sequence numbering to trace the number of certificates issued and stored for accountability;
  • UV detectable crest in the middle of the certificates of grades 8, 10 and 12. The PNG crest is placed in UV ink material and can be detected by the UV detection equipment;
  • hologram – something as placed in the driving licences.

The original has about five security features inside that can’t be duplicated.
Basically, it will glow or shine while the copies won’t;

  • small texts – certificate names are written in so small letters bearing the certificate names which can be seen through a magnifying glass; on the photocopying, it becomes a line;
  • gold foil hot stamping – certificate names are stamped this way, raised from the normal flat printing. This becomes an easy manual way to check the originality of the certificates as in embossing; and,
  • Anti-copy feature – reverse side of certificates on copying or scanning will show ‘copy’ through the page.

“Our certificates are very secure; we can enhance public awareness on them to contain malpractices related to certification,” Arulappan said.