The Ministry of General Education in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education have ordered both public and private learning institutions to authenticate and verify all academic documents before admitting students due to an alarming prevalence of forged certificates in the country.

This came on the heels of a medical student in one of the universities being discovered with forged academic certificates.

Speaking to Radio Tamazuj last week, the Minister of General Education and Instruction, Awut Deng Achuil, said that there are so many forged certificates circulating and some of the bearers have been admitted to universities.

“Two months ago there was a medical student in one of the universities here, when we checked his certificate, it was forged. So I believe that we need to do justice for our people, there are very sensitive areas where you cannot just go to school when you have not sat in the class. Medicine is one of them, and engineering and I can say all of them,” Minister Awut said.

She added, “This is something very serious and it has not happened in the past and I think we need to be vigilant to make sure that it doesn’t happen. So, please when you get a certificate within South Sudan, bring it to our ministry and let the National Examination Council verify whether this certificate is a true certificate.”

She further said there are also certificates from neighboring countries that are forged and or fake.

For his part, the Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, Changson Chang, said that this year they have noticed several forged certificates which is very alarming.

“The last admission, the number was thirteen and this year there are fifteen (forged certificates) and we will share these numbers with the Minister Awut Deng who is trying her level best to crack down on forgery of certificates,” Changsong said.

He added,"We want the universities to help us also, as she mentioned before, there are applicants who may have forged certificates but they don’t come through General Education or higher Education because the two ministries have tools that detect the forged certificates.”