The Kenya Government Brings 30 million+ Academic Credentials On-Chain,’ Announces Avalanche Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC)

Kenya has launched a blockchain-based academic credential verification platform through the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC), bringing more than 30 million examination records on-chain using the Avalanche blockchain. The initiative aims to combat certificate fraud while enabling faster, secure, and tamper proof verification of academic records.

According to Avalanche, the platform allows employers, universities, and government agencies to instantly verify academic credentials without relying on paper certificates, reducing both verification time and administrative costs.

The launch builds on Kenya's broader digital identity strategy. In October 2025, the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy (MICDE) announced plans to explore Verifiable Credentials (VCs) and digital wallets to replace paper-based academic certificates with cryptographically secured digital records. The initiative envisions citizens storing and sharing their academic credentials through self controlled digital wallets while allowing institutions to verify them in real time.

During a stakeholder workshop led by ICT Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo, government agencies, the Ministry of Education, and the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) discussed a roadmap for nationwide implementation of verifiable credentials and digital wallets under internationally recognized standards. Although the workshop did not explicitly reference blockchain technology, the newly launched KNEC platform represents a significant step toward realizing that vision using Avalanche as the underlying blockchain infrastructure.

The rollout positions Kenya among a growing number of countries leveraging blockchain technology to modernize public services, strengthen digital identity infrastructure, and secure educational records. Bringing over 30 million academic credentials on-chain also marks one of Africa's largest real world blockchain implementations in the education sector.