Bhubaneswar, April 25: Students who need to authenticate their educational certificates for going abroad either for employment or higher education will now be saved the trouble of making repeated visits to the state secretariat.

Forms and information required for the process are now available on the higher education department’s website and can be downloaded by candidates at their convenience. This has been done to help students who are often confused about the application procedure.

Besides downloading the form, the students can also go through the guidelines that clearly explain the process and enumerate the documents required for the purpose. The students have to shell out only Rs 50 as processing fee.

“On a monthly average, there are 50 applications for authentication. The numbers may decrease or increase depending on various factors,” a senior official of the department said.

Earlier, students used to make rounds of the department because they did not know what documents were required for processing the certificates. Often, candidates and their parents would be were forced to return because they did not have the required documents, making the entire process a tedious and time consuming affair.

“The online guidelines give details about the documents required and contact numbers of the officials concerned. This will definitely mean a respite for candidates, especially those living in far flung districts,” said Prateeksha Behera, a BTech student.

The move is also intended to check the involvement of agents and touts. There have been several reports of gullible parents and students falling prey to touts and losing their money.

Authentication of certificates was made compulsory by certain countries after several cases of forged certificates surfaced. However, authentication was not required for all countries, said the department officials.

“Candidates going to Gulf countries and Africa need to authenticate their certificates, but it is not required for those going to the US or Australia,” said the official. He said applications for authentication were only processed before departure and securing visa, and not in advance.

While it takes about a week for authentication of certificates issued by Utkal University or Biju Patnaik University of Technology, for other varsities, the time varies from two to three weeks.