To get a job or any kind of opportunity in Kenya or anywhere in the world one is always asked to prove their academic qualifications in whatever job or field they are seeking employment hence it has become prudent for any individual to work hard to acquire a certificate of whatever educational level in life.
However, the glamour for the certificates and attaining higher levels of education has led to some people going an extra mile to use unorthodox means to acquire such important documents.
According to the Kenya National Qualification Authority – KNQA, 30 percent of the certificates in Kenya are fake or acquired illegally.
KNQA director-general Dr. Juma Mukhwana told westfm.co.ke that the certificates were acquired illegally or from illegal institutions or the holders did not qualify to sit for such level of education to be awarded the certificate.
“Every day we receive many people here at our offices bringing certificates to us to verify if they are genuine and we realized that many of those documents up to 30% are fake because some have been acquired from institutions that are not qualified to offer such courses, or they did not meet the basic qualification to offer such courses among other reasons,” he said.
He notes that the situation is as a result of the mushrooming of many colleges and universities whereby there are over 400 colleges and over 70 universities that offer certificates, degrees and diplomas at their own level and keep their records with no common point of harmonizing the documents to a required standard hence it becomes hard to verify and confirm whether it is genuine or fake.
However, Mukhwana has revealed that KNQA has now come up with a website that will make it easy for anyone to check online and confirm whether the documents that they are doubting are fake or genuine.
“The first thing we are doing as KNQA will from 17th March this year will put all records of all persons who have been awarded certificates online in an effort to put everything online and make it easy to verify the document wherever one is using their mobile phone or on their computer,” said Mukhwana.
He added that the new system will require all universities, colleges and exam bodies to furnish the authority with all the names of people who have been awarded certificates from their institutions at all levels to be in one common basket.
The authority according to Dr. Mukhwana is also working closely with other government agencies to nab all those who are using fake documents so that they are brought to book for the criminal offense.
KNQA is working with the police, Ethics and Anti-corruption Authority – EACC, director of public prosecutions – DPP among other agencies to fight the vice that Mukhwana says is painting a bad name and image of the education system of the country in the eyes of the international community.
Holders of fake certificates to be prosecuted and repay salaries
KNQA has now revealed that the government agencies working on the fight against fake documents have put in place modules of punishing those found guilty of altering false documents.
Among the punitive measures is that if one is found with fake education certificates that he used to acquire employment, then the first thing is that he or she will be sacked, then be compelled to repay all the salary that he earned while holding that job with interest and finally be prosecuted for altering false documents which is a criminal offense.