TomoChain is officially partnering with the Government of Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) to architect, develop, and utilize a National Qualifications Archive (NQA) system that will secure recognized diplomas and certificates on the TomoChain Public Blockchain.
NQA will be the very first project of any ministry in Vietnam applying blockchain technology. The NQA system is set to be implemented nationwide for the 2020–2021 school year to store and access all educational records under the purview of MOET, beginning with Vietnam’s High Schools, Universities, and Foreign Language Institutes.
To be clear, the NQA system is NOT a pilot. It is a full-scale system roll-out using the TomoChain Blockchain at a country level. This sheer scale of use & adoption for a Public Blockchain by any major government is unprecedented, and a significant milestone for our industry.
Ministry of Education and Training oversees the entire Education System of Vietnam
The MOET has complete oversight of all education and training at Vietnam’s national level, covering over 22 million students. That is everything from primary through higher education plus teacher, professional, and vocational education.
To provide some context to the scale of the initial phase of this project, all 2.45 million high school and 1.4 million higher education students would qualify to be included in the new NQA system upon graduation.
After a successful trial run for the 2020–2021 school year, we anticipate backlog cataloging of diplomas from previous years and an expansion to include additional forms of diplomas granted by units under the MOET.
Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Van Phuc said, “With the strong spirit of innovation of the whole society and Government’s Parties, the application of 4.0 technology is expected to drive future developments. The Ministry of Education and Training is also not out of this trend, and many 4.0 technology applications adopted by schools, Departments and Ministries have proven that the application of new technology helps solve long-standing problems faster, more effectively and more cost-savingly. Diploma and certificate management is one of the issues that need to be renovated by technology, which is significant for the whole society and cost-efficient for the diploma management system in particular and the education sector in general.”
TomoChain Blockchain Handles an Entire Nation’s Demand — Adds Transparency, Efficiency, and Prevents Fraud
Academic fraud has been on the rise globally with thousands of businesses, being referred to as “Diploma Mills,” providing inexpensive diploma forgeries. This industry’s growth stems from the fact that verifying educational qualifications can be an arduous task for employers.
In Vietnam, qualifications are self-granted and self-managed by training institutions according to the autonomy school policy of the MOET. This process, however, makes it time-consuming for employers to cross-check the details for every candidate with individual institutes, each of which follow their own procedures.
Adopting the NQA system by MOET will provide a standardized process at the national level, that allows all agencies to enable verification of diplomas in a simple, accurate and economical way, without affecting the autonomous power of degree-granting institutions in Vietnam.
The use of TomoChain Public Blockchain demonstrably proves its capability to handle high-throughput transactions for the countrywide demands that will be placed on the NQA system. The TomoChain Blockchain can handle near-instantaneous transactions at a speed of 2000 tps, over 300,000 transactions all costing under USD $1.
“The qualifications archives solution with blockchain technology has been researched and adopted by TomoChain for over one year. We are very honored to cooperate with the Ministry of Education and Training to deploy this technology to the education system in Vietnam, contributing to the elimination of the prevalent issue of counterfeit diplomas, and making the access of diplomas easier. Currently, storing data evidence on a public chain is a global trend due to its economical, secure and confidential advantages. I strongly believe that this system lays a solid foundation for adopting cutting-edge digital technologies in the world to e-government 4.0 in Vietnam, helping us to walk along with other innovative and progressive countries over the world.”, CEO TomoChain Long Vuong expressed.
NQA Offers a Simple Front-End Portal Secured by a Powerful Blockchain Solution
The implementation of the NQA system will allow MOET to receive, store, and organize digital diploma data from training institutions effortlessly from a simple web interface. Storing the diplomas using TomoChain Public Blockchain technology is a transparent process that ensures data integrity due to its immutable nature.
Every certificate uploaded to NQA is allocated a unique ID, which is provided to students upon graduation. Graduates simply need to provide this information to potential employers, who can then log in to the NQA website portal to authenticate and verify the diploma record. This single NQA website will be used to access blockchain-secured records for all graduates across all institutes pan-Vietnam.
The development of the NQA system began in October 2020 and is expected to be completed by end of 2020. The process will be an iterative one, and we will continue to improve the system as it scales and additional features are requested.
Government and Enterprise Project Conversions Require Incredible Patience
In 2019, we presented a use case of blockchain for open certificates showcasing different public and private blockchain approaches. The goal was to provide a scalable and easy-to-use system for thousands of independent educational institutions nationwide.
MOET was interested in next-generation “4.0 technology” approaches to this solution so we strengthened our focus on the value of blockchain to secure data in a cryptographically verifiable, unalterable and tamper-proof manner. Since then we presented possible solutions on the TomoChain Public Blockchain, private chains like Hyperledger, and even TomoChain’s newly acquired Lition side-chain on Ethereum.
The deal was signed into effect in October 2020, well over a year after our earliest presentation. For a fast-moving space like crypto, it can be challenging to reconcile the sheer amount of time that goes into landing enterprise blockchain projects within traditional industries and governments. However, this partnership is also a testament to the incredible effort of our team to realize a future where Public Blockchains are credible platforms for securing sensitive data at a national scale.
TomoChain’s Enterprise Division
With offices in Japan and Vietnam, TomoChain’s enterprise division has a 2-year history of developing solutions for enterprise clients in healthcare, automotive, food, and others.
Recently, TomoChain acquired Lition Blockchain. Lition is a German-based blockchain project, integrated with Microsoft Azure, and co-innovated by software giant SAP. Lition presents a unique side-chain solution on the Ethereum blockchain to provide a scalable system that meets GDPR compliance requirements. With Lition, TomoChain has expanded its repertoire of reputable blockchain options to offer its enterprise clients, and now has access to European markets.
As a combined entity, TomoChain is evolving into a comprehensive global blockchain consultancy group capable of deploying solutions on both public and private chains for Government and Enterprise clients.
Vietnam Signals Blockchain Direction through Adoption of TomoChain
Today marks a major milestone for the entire Blockchain industry with Vietnam officially putting its hat in the ring to support Public Blockchain infrastructure. TomoChain technology will be entrusted to back the entire country’s effort through MOET to evolve its educational sector and meet the country’s 4.0 technology initiative.
The Vietnam government has been closely monitoring the merits of blockchain technology for years. We have spent the last two years meeting with numerous government officials, including our highly publicized discussions held with the Ministry of Justice on defining a regulatory framework for blockchain in 2019. And, with the recent moves by a number of countries to introduce a form of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), this is an appropriate time for Vietnam to take its next step forward.
This success is a shared one across the entire TomoChain umbrella, including LuaSwap and Lition. It represents a collective effort and dedication of our community, Validators, TomoX DEX operators, and ecosystem partners as we #BUIDLed, expanded, and earned credibility step by step. We are all making history, being at the forefront of a transformational shift in the perception of Blockchain technology and in its inevitable adoption the world over.
