Dec. 19, 2001 witnessed the formal opening up of the system for Internet checkup of authentic certificates issued by institutes of higher learning in the whole country. From now on, every year will see the record of formal schooling for university graduates all over the country put onto the net for checkup and verification.

As decided by the Ministry of Education this year indicates the beginning for a comprehensive implementation of electronic registration, checkup and verification of all certificates of high education in the country. This is an important measure for strengthening the administration over the place and record of formal schooling of the university graduates by means of information technology.

The electronic registered certificates consist of two types: diploma of a graduate and certificate for winding up the study. All certificates got by students recruited according to the national enrollment plan, and graduated from institutes of high learning in general, from institutes for adult-study or other educational organizations and sci-tech research institutions approved to run research courses and those obtained by students of high learning through self-study examination and by sitting in examination for certificate of formal schooling as well as the certificates gained by graduates from military academies must be electronically registered. The registered certificates of formal schooling after being verified and filed by educational administrative departments will be put into the electronic archive database, which can be checked or verified by the public through the national students net of high education. Present on the Internet now is the information of nearly 2 million university graduates of this year and later on every year will see the certificates of all graduates of high learning put onto the net for the public checkup before the yearend. Aside from that the Ministry of Education has decided to put the certificates issued by units of high learning between 1991 to 2000 into the record and onto the net for the public to check up with in 2002.

The work of registration and administration of the certificates for formal schooling of high learning has been entrusted by the Ministry of Education to the Information, Consultancy and Employment Directory Center for Graduates of High Education for implementation and to be operated on the "Website for Chinese University Students". At the same time they can also be checked by way of the phonetic system of China Telecom 168 Channel. The result of checkup will be the same either through phonetic system or website. The way of execution is like this: Dial to get through the phone for checkup, input the registration number and then operate according to the phonetic prompts and the result will finally come out through the system. The website checkup is: www.chinadaxuesheng.edu.cn or www.chinadaxuesheng.com; for phonetic checkup, please dial: 86-10-6899315.

(People?s Daily December 20, 2001)