National Academic Depository (NAD)

National Academic Depository (NAD) was launched by the Ministry of Human Resources Development in September 2016.

Background

2016-17 budget speech outlined a ‘Digital Depository’. NAD is a response to that and especially a vision under Digital India. NAD would come into existence throughout the country in 2017-18.

NAD will act as a Digital Depository for school leaving certificates, degrees and other academic awards of higher education institutions.
NAD will enable to provide a digital or a printed copy of the academic award to students or other authorised users. It will register educational institutions/boards/eligibility assessment bodies, students and other user entities like banks, employer companies and government agencies. Academic institutions would be held responsible for the authenticity of the data digitally uploaded by them into the system.

Features of NAD

The following are the significant features of NAD:

• It is a system for Issuance, Hosting, Access of Digital Certificates and Online Verification.
• NAD will be facilitating Academic Institutions to directly lodge the details of Academic Awards which are issued to students in an online manner.
• The Academic Institution will include the details of the Aadhaar Number of the Student as part of the Certificate details so that Certificate can be securely made available to the concerned student.
• Certificate holders will register on NAD system for accessing their certificate records. They will identify themselves based on Aadhaar Verification framework provided by Unique Identification Authority of India.
• Registered students will have a Unique account on NAD System and can access all their records 24X7 in an online secure manner.
• NAD can be accessed online by all authorised verifiers (Academic Institutes admitting students for higher education, Employers, Banks, Government organizations etc. for verification of academic awards of prospective candidates).
• Verification Users need not approach Academic Institutes for verification of the Certificate records. They can directly approach NAD system and lodge a Certificate Verification request.
• NAD System will notify the concerned student about the verification request and if the student confirms to share the certificate details, the record would be made available to the verifying party for verification.
• NAD system has the necessary security feature to ensure that only authorized users have access to authorized functions.

Benefits of NAD

The facility of NAD will provide following benefits to the Students and Certificate Holders:

• There is the facility of early receipt of online certificates as compared to physical certificates.
• Online and 24X7 accessibility to all certificate records without any risk of losing, mutilation etc.
• Easy acceptability of online verifiable certificates without requiring attested copies, original presentation.
• Easy facility for applying for and obtaining duplicate copy of the certificates.
• Easy facility to submit verifiable copy of the certificate to employers, higher educational institutes.
• Admissions, Jobs, Loans becomes easier.

Discussion

Question is – To what extent and in what way, National Academic Repository (NAD) is in sync with the Digital India dream?  NAD is looked upon by experts as a unique, innovative and progressive step towards achievement of Digital enablement of the Education Records. NAD aspires to make the vision of Digital Academic Certificates for every Indian a reality.

NAD is an answer to do away with all difficulties and inefficiencies related to collecting, maintaining, and presenting physical paper certificates. It will be creating an active online place for Students, Academic Institutes and Verification Users. Not only this, NAD also acts as a deterrence factor for those people who wish to think that paper certificates can be easily forged. This will bring in trust and credibility to genuine certificate holders and makes their certificates trusted and easily accepted.

Further, an online portfolio of all education certificates across Academic Instituteswhich can be submitted easily for employment, higher education, and loan can easily trusted and verified through the platform of NAD. NAD is integrating in nature for students, educational institutes and employers to view the educational records. It does away with the paper wastage.