Easier procedures + more transparency: Say hello to the electronic portal for higher education equivalency certificates. The Higher Education Ministry has launched an electronic portal for students to receive equivalency certificates, with the services available for all graduate and postgraduate degrees and across all areas of study. The platform will be accessible for students who either studied abroad or at a local university that requires equivalency certificates.

The platform is already up and running, after the ministry launched it in mid-April. The original process — which required students to physically submit their paperwork to the Supreme Council of Universities office at Cairo University — has been scrapped, according to Higher Education Ministry sources we spoke with.

How it works: Students can now set up a user account on the portal to input their data, upload their documents electronically, and submit a request for the certificate they want. Online payment is integrated on the website, which also offers a follow-up feature for students to track progress on their request, as well as a form for inquiries. The website also provides a user manual (pdf) to guide the process. Once a certificate request is submitted, a specialized committee is responsible for looking into the request and verifying all appended documents.

The timeline: Once an applicant’s request is accepted and all the necessary data and documents are provided, the equivalency certificate could be issued as quickly as within a week’s time, according to Nahda University President Hossam El Malahy told Enterprise. Prior to the digital system, the process would typically take up to two months for a certificate request to be processed.

There are initial procedures that need to be followed, though: To receive the equivalency degree, students who study abroad need to follow certain procedures that the council put in place as of last academic year. Once they receive a university offer or a scholarship to study abroad, students are required to register with the Higher Education Ministry, which then monitors these students throughout the duration of their studies. Students who fail to meet these requirements will not be granted equivalency degrees, the council said.

Why is this happening now? The ministry decided to set up the electronic system for several reasons, chief among them being transparency and to build a robust database of students who studied abroad, including the degrees they received and the country in which they studied, according to our ministry sources. By using the electronic platform, the ministry will also be better able to detect fake certificates, our sources said. The system is also meant to keep up with global standards of digitization, while streamlining procedures for students.

Going digital = better oversight and unified procedures: Setting up a digital system for the process of issuing equivalency certificates will allow the process to be monitored and transparent, Badr University President Mostafa Kamal told Enterprise. Before the system went online, private universities used to provide graduation certificates and would then go through the process of documenting these certificates only when needed, while public universities sent certificates directly to the Supreme Council of Universities to be verified, Kamal said. The new system unifies the procedures for students at all universities, which will create a more organized structure, he said.

Your top education stories for the week: Egypt has been ranked 24th globally in the SCImago index for scientific publications,according to a statement from the Higher Education Ministry. Our ranking increased two places from 2021 when it ranked 26th in the world.

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