UGC asks institutions to accept degrees, marksheet on DigiLocker as valid documents

NEW DELHI: The University Grants Commission (UGC) has requested all educational institutions to accept degrees, mark sheets and other documents issued on the DigiLocker account as valid documents.

“The education ministry has authorised UGC to implement the National Academic Depository (NAD) in cooperation with the DigiLocker platform by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Academic institutions can register themselves and upload documents in the DigiLocker NAD portal,” said a letter from the UGC.

UGC requests all Academic Institutions to accept Degree, Mark-sheets & other documents available in issued documents in DigiLocker account as valid documents. pic.twitter.com/av9uw8KqDd

— UGC INDIA (@ugc_india) January 7, 2022

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The National Academic Depository is an online platform that enables the storage of academic awards and documents by academic institutions in digital format which allows students to access authentic certificates in digital format from the original issuer. It enables students to access these digital documents anytime, anywhere.

DigiLocker facilitates the storage of important academic documents of students under the documents section. UGC has stated in the letter that these documents available in the DigiLocker platform are valid as per the Information Technology Act 2000.

“All academic institutions are requested to accept degrees, mark sheets and other documents in the DigiLocker account,” said the UGC letter.

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The UGC has recently asked all central universities to rationalise their courses by offering the courses based on the demand of students and the number of students attending the course. The UGC also asked the central universities to rationalise the departments by aligning the number of teaching staff with the number of students. Many teachers responded to this move of UGC by saying that this could lead to the end of many courses, and degree programmes. Even Indian language courses will be at risk.