The Education Bureau (EDB) today (June 24) announced that starting from July 1, newly issued Certificates of Registration of a School and Certificates of Provisional Registration of a School will fully adopt an electronic version with an e-Proof and a digital signature to replace the existing manually signed or stamped paper certificates. The EDB will also renew the paper certificates in phases.
An EDB spokesman said, "In line with the Government's policy objective of providing more electronic public services, new electronic certificates of school registration offer greater convenience to the school sector and the public. Once the school's application for registration is approved, the school supervisor will instantly and conveniently receive an electronic certificate of school registration in portable document format (pdf) by email for downloading and printing, without the need to visit the EDB's office in person for collection of the certificate."
Electronic and paper certificates of school registration carry the same legal status and information, namely the registration number, school name and address, date of issue, period of validity (if applicable) and signature of the responsible EDB officer. Schools are required to exhibit a printout of the electronic certificate in the same manner as the paper certificate.
Each Certificate of Registration of a School and Certificate of Provisional Registration of a School contains an e-Proof QR code. The public may access the e-Proof website (www.eproof.gov.hk) of the Government by mobile phone and scan the QR code of the electronic certificates to verify the validity of the certificates.
​For schools with paper certificates, the EDB will conduct a replacement exercise in phases from September for them to obtain an electronic certificate at no cost. Schools will receive the EDB's written notice about the replacement exercise in due course. Information on the electronic certificates of school registration and the schedule of the replacement exercise are available on the EDB website (www.edb.gov.hk/en/sch-admin/sch-registration/about-sch-registration/e_licensing.html).
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