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Home › Services › Document Guides › Equivalence Certificate Assistance

This document is not about you.

Somebody has asked you for an equivalence certificate, so begin with what such a document says, because the usual reading of it is wrong and the wrong reading is expensive. It is a statement about two institutions. It says that what one of them awards may be read alongside what the other awards. Your name is printed on it, and you are not its subject. Which leads to the fact that explains every refusal in this area: nobody has assessed your ability. Two curricula were laid side by side on paper and a view was formed about whether they cover comparable ground. The strongest and the weakest graduate of one programme receive exactly the same comparison, because the comparison was never about either of them. That is not unfairness — it is a different question, and the trouble starts when somebody expects a document about institutions to do the work of an interview. Then the assumption that costs the most. The body that issues a comparison is not the body that will rely on it. Holding one is not the same as being accepted: the employer, university or authority at the other end decides for itself, and may want something else, something more, or something from elsewhere. So ask the receiving party first, in writing, and specifically — what document, from whom, in what form, and what happens if it cannot be obtained. Next, why these actually fail. Almost never because anybody judged your education poorly. Nearly always because something could not be produced. And the paper it all rests on is not your degree certificate: it is the detailed curriculum or scheme of study, which says what was taught, for how long, in what structure — and it is the one document no student ever keeps, while institutions stop issuing it after some years. Last, a planning point: this is rarely done once, because a comparison made for one purpose does not always travel to another. Our edge: we do not say whether a comparison can be made, which body should make it, whether any qualification is recognised, or whether anybody will accept what you obtain.

From ₹3,499 15 – 45 days About institutions The curriculum decides it
My son finished a four-year engineering degree abroad and has come back to India. He applied for a government post and they have asked for an equivalence certificate, and he has also been told he may need one for a masters admission. We applied somewhere for this three months ago and were refused, and the letter did not really explain why. He was a good student with decent marks and I do not understand how a refusal is even possible. What are we meant to do now?Let me start with the refusal, because I think the sentence that will help most is about what was actually being decided, and once you see it the letter will make more sense than it did. Nobody refused your son. The document you applied for is not a statement about him at all. It is a statement about two institutions. It says, in effect, that what one body awards may be read alongside what another body awards. His name goes on the paper, and he is not what the paper is describing. So when a refusal arrives, it is almost never anybody forming a poor view of the student. And that leads straight to the second thing, which is the one parents find hardest and which I want to put plainly rather than gently. Nobody assessed his ability. Nobody looked at his marks and decided they were insufficient. What happens is that two curricula are laid beside each other on paper, and a view is formed about whether they cover comparable ground, for comparable duration, in a comparable structure. His attendance, his effort, his capability, what he can actually build or calculate — none of that enters the exercise anywhere. The best graduate of his programme and the weakest graduate of his programme would receive exactly the same comparison, because the comparison was never about either of them. I know that sounds harsh when you have watched somebody work for four years. It is not harshness and it is not unfairness. It is simply a different question. Whether your son is capable is a question for an interview, a test, a probation period. Whether his qualification sits alongside an Indian one is a question about documents. The distress in these files almost always comes from expecting the second to do the work of the first. Now, why do these get refused, since you have one and no explanation. In my experience it is hardly ever a conclusion anybody reached. It is almost always something that could not be shown. A detailed curriculum that nobody could produce. A scheme of study the institution no longer issues. A duration or structure that could not be lined up because the documents did not describe it in enough detail. A gap in the years that nobody accounted for on paper. The refusal is a gap in the file, and the letter tells you very little because there is very little to tell you — somebody could not complete a comparison, so they did not make one. Which brings me to the document that actually decides this, and it surprises everybody. It is not the degree certificate. It is not the marksheets. It is the detailed curriculum or scheme of study: the paper that sets out what was taught, for how long, in what structure, subject by subject. A comparison cannot be made without it, because without it there is nothing to compare. And it is the single document no student in the world keeps, because at the time it is handed out it looks like an administrative leaflet rather than the key to everything that happens afterwards. So the first practical thing is to go and find it. It usually still exists. The department rather than the central administration, because the detail lives with the department. An old prospectus or handbook from his year of entry. The institution library or archive. A classmate who kept their papers, which has rescued more of these files than any other route. Occasionally a regulator or affiliating body that held a copy at the time. One of those five generally produces something. What is true, and is the reason to start this week rather than next month, is that institutions stop issuing these after some years, and every year that passes makes the search harder. Now the second structural thing, and this one is about the order you do things in rather than about documents. There are two different parties in this and people treat them as one. There is the body that issues a comparison, and there is the party that will rely on it. Those are not the same, and here is what follows: holding a certificate is not the same as being accepted. The government department your son applied to decides for itself what it will treat as sufficient. The university considering him for a masters decides separately, and may want something different. One of them may accept a comparison from a body the other will not. So before anybody applies for anything again, I would write to both of them. Not asking whether they accept equivalence certificates, which gets you a yes that costs a month. Asking four specific things: what document do you require, issued by which body, in what form, and what will you do if that body declines to issue one. Those four answers, in writing, outweigh the whole of this conversation — and they cost nothing. If you had that answer three months ago you might not have made an application that was refused, or you might have made a different one. I am not saying the application was wrong — I have not seen it. I am saying the sequence is where almost all the waste in this subject sits. One more thing about your son having two purposes, the post and the masters, because this matters for planning. This is rarely a one-time exercise. A comparison obtained for one purpose does not automatically travel to another, and a different receiving party can want its own. So do not assume that solving the government post also solves the admission. Ask both, separately, and expect that the answers may differ. Two smaller things, quickly. If there is any gap in his years — a break, a change of institution, a repeated period — get it accounted for on paper and put it in the file from the beginning rather than producing it in response to a question. An unexplained silence in a record invites a query that nobody will be present to answer. And if any of his documents are not in a language the receiving end reads, ask what form of translation they want before anybody translates anything, because redoing a translation to a different standard is a cost you can avoid entirely. Now my own limits, and on this subject I hold them tightly. I will not tell you whether a comparison can be made for his qualification, because that is a determination by a competent body on his actual curriculum, and the curriculum has not been assembled yet. I will not tell you which body should make it, because that depends on the qualification and the purpose and the receiving party. I will not tell you whether his institution or his programme is recognised or sufficient for anything, which is not a question I am in a position to answer about anybody. And I print no body name, no fee, no period and no grade conversion anywhere, because every one of those changes and a figure read off a page and acted on is how people end up where you are now. What we do is the part that was missing. We write to the receiving parties and get the requirement in writing with those four questions. We trace the curriculum through all five routes. We build the year-by-year record of what he studied with the evidence behind each year. We assemble what you already hold and tell you exactly what is absent. And we set the file out so that whoever forms the view has nothing left to ask. In your case I would also want to read the refusal letter, because even an unhelpful one usually names the thing that was missing.

What this guide covers

  1. Whose statement is this?
  2. Not about you at all
  3. It is about two institutions
  4. The question to put to any paper
  5. Who is this document describing?
  6. A comparison shaped like a verdict
  7. And why nobody notices that
  8. Two bodies, not one
  9. The one that issues it
  10. The one that will rely on it
  11. And they are not the same
  12. Holding one is not acceptance
  13. The order people get backwards
  14. Ask the receiver first
  15. In writing, and specifically
  16. What to ask them, exactly
  17. The answer that saves the most
  18. What we see when nobody asked
  19. A comparison is never exact
  20. Two systems that never agreed
  21. Different years, different subjects
  22. What “comparable” means
  23. And what it does not mean
  24. Where the refusals come from
  25. The silence that gets read
  26. What we will not predict
  27. Nobody assessed you
  28. They compared two papers
  29. The brilliant and the weak
  30. The same certificate for both
  31. Which is not an unfairness
  32. It is a different question
  33. What it cannot tell anybody
  34. And what still comes from you
  35. Where your own evidence goes
  36. The things that do carry you
  37. The document that decides it
  38. Not your degree — your scheme
  39. Why a curriculum is the key
  40. The thing no student keeps
  41. And institutions stop issuing it
  42. How far back you can still go
  43. If it cannot be produced
  44. Who else might have it
  45. The folder we wish you had kept
  46. It is never once and done
  47. A different purpose, a different ask
  48. Why it does not travel
  49. How to do this without repeating it
  50. What this page will not settle
  51. Six quiet refusals
  52. The week that decides the months
  53. Who writes to us about this
  54. What we assemble first
  55. The date we keep honest
  56. Which desk each answer sits on
  57. What we never certify
  58. Our fee on an equivalence file
  59. And what happens after it

Whose statement is this?

One question first, and the whole of this guide unfolds from the answer.

A document arrives with your name on it, your qualification named in it, and a conclusion printed at the bottom. Every signal says you are what is being described.

You are not.

Not about you at all

Nothing in it reports on your capability, your record, your effort or your standing.

It does not say you learned well, or badly. It does not say you are suitable for anything. It makes no claim about you that anybody could act on, and the parties who read it do not treat it as one.

It is about two institutions

The sentence it actually contains is a sentence about two bodies and what they award.

Roughly: what this body gives may be read alongside what that body gives. Two awarding institutions, placed beside each other, with a view formed about the relationship between them.

Your name appears on it as an occasion for the comparison. It is not the subject of the comparison.

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The question to put to any paper

And the habit worth taking from this page extends well past this one document.

Who is this document describing?

A great many papers people collect are about something other than them — an institution, a transaction, a date, a system. Reading them as personal statements is how people end up hurt by documents that were never discussing them.

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Who is this document describing?

Set the two readings side by side, because the gap explains the distress these files produce.

 How it is readWhat it says
SubjectThe applicantTwo awarding bodies
Based onMarks and meritCurricula, on paper
A refusal meansYou were found wantingSomething was not shown
SettlesWhether you are good enoughNothing about any person
Varies withHow well you didWhat documents exist

Every row on the left is a misreading, and every one of them is entirely natural.

A comparison shaped like a verdict

Which is the trouble: a document about systems arrives dressed as a document about a person.

It is addressed to you. It names your award. It reaches a conclusion and prints it. Everything about its form says judgement, and the content is arithmetic between two syllabi.

A statement about institutions wearing the appearance of a statement about a candidate — and almost nobody is told the difference before they apply.

And why nobody notices that

Because the whole surrounding experience is personal, and that is what sets the expectation.

You assemble your own documents. You pay the fee. You wait for a letter about yourself. The process feels like an assessment from beginning to end, so the output is read as one.

This belongs up here rather than the back because it changes how people behave. Applicants who understand that the document is about institutions go looking for a curriculum. Applicants who think it is about them go looking for more marksheets, and send them, and wait.

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Two bodies, not one

A second feature sits underneath all of this, and more money is lost to it than to any other part of the subject.

There are two separate parties here and people treat them as a single counterparty. Everything about the order in which you do things depends on keeping them apart.

The one that issues it

The first is a body competent to form the comparison and record it.

It has its own criteria, its own evidentiary requirements, and its own view of what it is willing to compare. We name none on this page, because which one is appropriate turns on the qualification, the purpose and the party at the other end — and guessing is how weeks go.

And it is worth knowing that such a body is not a gatekeeper standing between you and a job. It is closer to a reference library: it holds a frame of reference and will tell you where something sits within it, if given enough to work from. It has no interest in the outcome of your application and no view about it.

Which is also why its letters read so flatly. A refusal from such a body is not a rejection in the sense anybody experiences rejection; it is a report that an exercise could not be completed. The tone of those letters causes a great deal of unnecessary hurt.

The one that will rely on it

The second is whoever asked you for the document in the first place.

An employer. A university admitting you. A department processing an application. A licensing authority. This is the party whose decision actually affects your life, and it is not the party issuing anything.

And this is the party to understand first, because its requirement is the only requirement that actually constrains you. Everything else in this exercise is a means of satisfying it.

And they are not the same

Which sounds obvious written down and is treated as though it were not.

They have different purposes, different standards and no obligation to agree with each other. One of them is in the business of forming comparisons. The other is in the business of filling a post or a seat, and is free to decide what satisfies it.

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Holding one is not acceptance

From which the operative consequence follows, and if a file of this kind had a cover note, this would be the line on it.

A valid comparison in your hand is not a yes from the person who asked for it.

They may want one from a different body. They may want something in addition. They may have a policy nobody told you about. None of that makes your document wrong — it makes it unusable for the purpose you bought it for.

The order people get backwards

And here is the inversion, which is almost universal and entirely reasonable.

What people do: get the certificate, then present it. What works: find out exactly what will be accepted, then get that.

The first order feels like making progress. It is the order in which a correct and useless document gets produced.

Ask the receiver first

So the first step in this exercise involves no application and no fee at all.

Write to whoever is asking you for the document. Before any body is approached, before anything is paid, before any file is assembled beyond what you already hold.

No fee, one afternoon, and nothing else in this subject returns as much.

In writing, and specifically

With two conditions on how you ask, because the wrong question produces a useless answer.

In writing, so that there is something to rely on and something to show if the answer later changes. And specifically, because the general question has a general answer that commits nobody.

“Do you accept equivalence certificates?” gets you a yes. That yes costs a month, because it did not say from whom, in what form, or for what purpose.

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What to ask them, exactly

Four questions, and we would send exactly these and nothing else.

  1. What document do you require? By its proper description, not by a category.
  2. Issued by which body? Named, or a list of what is acceptable.
  3. In what form? Original, attested, apostilled, attested at an embassy, translated and certified how.
  4. What will you do if that body declines to issue one? Hardly anybody puts this one, and it is what shows whether another route exists.

That fourth question is the one we would not drop. It is where you learn whether the requirement is a wall or a preference.

The answer that saves the most

And occasionally the reply makes the entire exercise unnecessary, which is worth the afternoon on its own.

We have had receiving parties answer that a transcript and a verification would satisfy them. That they accept an older comparison. That their own committee forms the view internally. That the requirement had been withdrawn and the form not updated.

A free letter that establishes you did not need the expensive thing is the best outcome in this subject, and it is only available before you buy it.

One more point about the form of the question. Address it to a person where you can, and keep the reply with the name and date on it. Requirements in large institutions are frequently not written down anywhere internally, which means two officers can honestly give two different answers — and the one you can produce in writing is the one that protects you later.

What we see when nobody asked

And when that step is skipped, the files arrive in a small number of recognisable states.

A comparison from a body the receiving party will not act on. One issued for a different purpose than the one now in play. One obtained for an employer and presented to a university, which wanted its own. One that is entirely valid and simply not what was asked for.

In none of those cases did anybody do the work badly. The sequence was inverted, and the sequence is where the cost in this subject lives.

A comparison is never exact

Now something about the nature of the exercise itself, because it explains why the wording of these documents is so cautious.

Nobody is being asked whether two qualifications are the same. They plainly are not, and could not be. The question is narrower and softer than that, and the softness is deliberate.

The question is whether they can be read alongside each other. Not whether they match.

Two systems that never agreed

Because the two things being compared were built independently, by people who never consulted each other.

Different decisions about how long a programme should run. Different views on what belongs in it. Different ideas about assessment, about progression, about what a year of study even means. Nobody designed either of them with the other in mind.

So a comparison is an act of interpretation across a gap, not a measurement. It produces a view, and views can differ.

Different years, different subjects

And the specific places where the gap shows up are fairly predictable.

None of those is a defect in anybody’s education. All of them are places where two independent designs fail to line up.

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What “comparable” means

Which is why the word that appears on these documents is a careful one, and reading it carelessly causes trouble later.

It means: for the stated purpose, this may be read alongside that. It is a limited, purposive statement, and the limits are in it on purpose rather than by accident of drafting.

Three words in it carry the whole weight, and each is doing deliberate work. May — permissive, not mandatory. Be read alongside — placed next to, not substituted for. For this purpose — bounded, and the boundary is the purpose stated and no other.

Read those three together and the document describes itself accurately. Read past them and it appears to say something far larger than it does.

And what it does not mean

And the things it does not say are worth listing, because people act as though it said them.

It does not say the two qualifications are identical. It does not say you may do everything a holder of the other one may do. It does not say every body must accept it. It does not say anything about you.

We would go further: the gap between what these documents say and what people believe they say is the single largest source of grief in this area, larger than refusals, and it is entirely avoidable by reading the sentence that is actually printed.

Where the refusals come from

Which brings us to failure, and to a fact that should be reassuring even when a refusal has already arrived.

They almost never come from a negative judgement. There is rarely a conclusion that your education was insufficient, because reaching such a conclusion would require an examination that nobody performed.

They come from something that could not be produced.

Five absences account for nearly all of them, in our experience, and every one is a document rather than a conclusion.

The silence that gets read

And a missing document is not read as neutral, which is the part people do not expect.

A curriculum that cannot be supplied does not leave the question open — it leaves it unanswerable, and an unanswerable question is closed against the applicant by default. A gap in the years with nothing explaining it does the same.

Nobody decided against you. There was simply nothing with which to decide for you, and no mechanism anywhere to ask you about it before the file was closed.

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What we will not predict

And this is the right moment to say what we decline, before the sections that might otherwise read as encouragement.

We will not tell you whether a comparison can be made in your case. We will not estimate your chances, name the body that should decide, or offer a view on whether any institution or programme is recognised or sufficient for anything.

Any forecast from us would be reassurance with nothing inside it, and here reassurance costs money — it is what keeps people from asking the receiving party the four questions. What we will tell you is whether the file is complete enough for a determination to be made at all, which is where almost all of these stall.

Nobody assessed you

Now the fourth fact, which follows from everything above and which is the hardest one to hear.

At no point in this exercise did anybody evaluate you. Not your work, not your understanding, not your results, not your capability.

They compared two papers

What happened was a documentary exercise conducted entirely at a desk.

Two descriptions of two programmes were read against each other. Durations were noted. Subject lists were compared. Structures were lined up. A view was formed and recorded.

Your transcript was evidence of what the programme was, not evidence of what you are.

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The brilliant and the weak

Which produces the fact that persuades people of all of this faster than any argument.

Take the best graduate of a programme and the one who barely finished it. Same institution, same years, same award, very different students.

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The same certificate for both

They receive identical comparisons, because the comparison was never about either of them.

Not similar. Identical. Nothing in the exercise is capable of distinguishing between two holders of the same award, and nothing in it was designed to.

If that seems to drain the document of meaning, it does not — it simply locates the meaning correctly. The document is about a programme.

Which is not an unfairness

And it is worth defending, because the natural reaction is that something has gone wrong.

Nothing has. A document about institutions that distinguished between individuals would be doing something it has no basis for — it has not met you, tested you or watched you work. Its refusal to say anything about you is a correctness, not a limitation.

It is a different question

The question about you exists. It is simply asked elsewhere, by different means.

QuestionAnswered by
Does this award exist?Verification
What is it comparable to?This exercise
What did you actually study?A transcript
Are you any good at it?An interview, a test, a probation
Are you a reliable person?A character certificate, references

And one practical use of that table: it tells you what to volunteer and when. If a receiving party has asked only for a comparison, sending them a character certificate and a sheaf of references does not strengthen the file — it answers rows nobody has reached yet.

What it cannot tell anybody

So be clear-eyed about what you are handing over when you hand this over.

It tells the reader where your qualification sits in their frame of reference. That is genuinely useful and it is all of it. It cannot tell them you will be good at the job, and it was never going to.

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And what still comes from you

Which means the persuading remains yours, and that is better news than it sounds.

The document removes an obstacle. It does not make a case. The case is made by what you can demonstrate, describe and evidence about your own work — and unlike the comparison, that part is entirely within your control.

Applicants who understand this stop over-investing in the certificate and start preparing for the conversation after it.

Where your own evidence goes

With a practical note, because people put their personal documents in the wrong place in this process.

Marksheets, prizes, project reports, references: these establish facts about what happened and they belong in the file as evidence of the programme and your completion of it. They do not influence the comparison itself, and sending more of them after a query does not help.

We see files where somebody has sent thirty pages of personal achievement in response to a request for a curriculum. It is a completely understandable response to being refused, and it answers a question nobody asked.

The things that do carry you

And the documents that genuinely move this forward are duller and fewer than people expect.

  1. The detailed curriculum or scheme of study — the one that decides it.
  2. A transcript showing subjects, credits and duration.
  3. The award document itself, and a migration or release paper if the system involved one.
  4. A medium of instruction certificate, where the language of teaching is in question.
  5. Something accounting for any gap in the years, on paper.

Five documents. Three of them you probably have. One of them is the subject of the next section, because it is the one that is almost certainly missing.

The document that decides it

Now the paper the entire exercise rests on, and almost nobody arrives holding it.

Not the degree certificate. Not the marksheets. Not the letters. One document carries this, and it is the dullest thing in the folder.

The detailed curriculum — the scheme of study.

Not your degree — your scheme

Which is counter-intuitive, because the degree certificate is the impressive one.

But the degree certificate says almost nothing: a name, an award, a date, a seal. It does not say what was taught, for how long, or in what order. Nothing on it can be compared to anything, because it contains no content to compare.

The scheme of study contains all of it. Subject by subject, year by year, with hours and structure.

Why a curriculum is the key

And once the earlier sections are in view, the reason is obvious rather than technical.

If the exercise is a comparison between two programmes, then the thing being compared is the description of each programme. No description, no comparison. Not a weak comparison — no exercise at all, because there is nothing on one side of the scale.

A refusal for want of a curriculum is not a judgement. It is an empty pan.

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There is also a practical consequence that follows immediately. If the curriculum is what decides the matter, then the curriculum is the first thing to go after — not the last item, and not something produced in reply to a query. The files that run into months almost always began their search after a refusal instead of before an application.

Find the syllabus before you find the form.

The thing no student keeps

Which brings us to the predictable part of every one of these files, said in advance so nobody feels foolish when it happens.

You do not have it. Practically nobody does.

It was handed out in the first week, or pinned on a board, or printed in a prospectus. At the time it looked like an administrative leaflet. Nothing about it signalled that it would one day be the only document that mattered, and the ones that did matter — the certificate, the marksheets — were the ones carefully kept.

It is also worth saying what the document is not, since people hand us the wrong thing hopefully. A list of subject names is not a scheme of study. A marksheet listing papers is not one either, because it records what you sat rather than what was taught. What is wanted is the programme as the institution described it: subjects, duration, structure, and ideally the weight each carried.

And institutions stop issuing it

With a reason to begin looking this week rather than next month.

Programmes get revised. Departments reorganise. The person who held the old files retires. The syllabus from a particular year stops being something anybody can readily put their hand on, and after enough years an institution will tell you it cannot supply it.

Every year that goes by makes the search harder, and holding off does nothing good for any other part of the position. Of every step here, this is the one where delay has a price attached.

How far back you can still go

We are not going to put a number on that, and the reason is that it varies enormously.

Some institutions hold their records exceptionally well and will produce something from decades ago. Others cannot reliably supply the year before last. It depends on the institution, not on the law or on any rule we could state here.

Which means the only way to find out is to ask, and asking costs nothing except the letter.

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If it cannot be produced

An institution that will not or cannot supply it does not end the file. It turns it into a reconstruction exercise, kept within careful limits.

Anything contemporaneous that describes the programme has value: an official prospectus, a handbook, a departmental circular, a printed syllabus from the year. What has value is that it is from the time and from the institution, not that it is formally issued today.

Composing an account of what a programme most likely held falls outside what we take on. A believable version of a syllabus that cannot be produced is no evidence of one, and presenting one as though it were is a different and far more serious problem than a refusal.

Who else might have it

Five routes, and we work through all of them rather than stopping at the first no.

Any single one of them may produce it. The fourth is the one people never try and the one we always suggest.

And a word on what “contemporaneous” is doing in that sentence, because it is the whole test. A departmental circular from your second year is worth more than a letter written today by somebody who remembers the programme, even if the letter is longer and on better paper. The first is a record. The second is a recollection, and a comparison cannot rest on a recollection.

The folder we wish you had kept

And a note for anybody reading this who is still studying, or has a child who is.

Keep the syllabus. Keep the prospectus from the year you joined. Keep anything describing the structure of the programme, not just the proof that you completed it. Scan all of it once and put it somewhere that will survive three changes of phone.

It is five minutes of work and it is worth more, years later, than the certificate everybody frames. In this subject the impressive document is the useless one and the leaflet is the key.

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It is never once and done

A planning point, because people treat this as a box to be ticked permanently and it is not shaped like one.

The comparison was made for a purpose, by a body, at a time. Change any of those three and the question can reopen.

A different purpose, a different ask

Which is the version of this that catches people mid-way through a plan.

A comparison obtained for employment is presented for admission, and the university wants its own. One obtained for one department is presented to another, which uses a different standard. Solving one purpose does not solve the next one, and in most cases the second one is already on the horizon while the first is in hand.

Three things change between one purpose and the next, and any of the three can reopen the question.

What changesWhy it matters
The receiving partyEach sets its own standard independently
The purposeThe document is bounded by the purpose stated in it
The timeA view formed years ago may be looked at afresh

Why it does not travel

And the reason follows from the two-bodies point rather than being a separate rule.

Since every receiving party decides for itself what satisfies it, there is no mechanism by which one party’s satisfaction binds another. Nobody is obliged to accept a document because somebody else did, and nothing in the document asks them to.

How to do this without repeating it

So the sensible approach is to deal with every purpose you can already see, at once.

  1. List every purpose you know about — this post, that admission, a licence, a future application.
  2. Write the four questions to each receiving party, in parallel rather than one after another.
  3. Compare the answers before applying anywhere, because one document may cover several.
  4. Assemble the curriculum file once. It is the same file for every purpose.
  5. Keep the whole set, scanned, because the next purpose will arrive.

Steps one to four cost letters and time. The money only starts at the application, and by then you know which application to make — which is the entire argument of this guide.

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What this page will not settle

Understanding how a process runs tells you nothing about your own position in it. Everything below is still open.

Our work sits beside that list and never inside it.

Six quiet refusals

Six patterns from files that reached us after a refusal. Not one was a judgement about a student.

What the file lackedWhat the applicant thought had happened
No detailed curriculum, only the degreeTheir marks were judged insufficient
A year unaccounted for, nothing explaining itThe gap counted against them personally
Documents in another language, uncertifiedThe institution was not respected
Comparison sought from the wrong bodyThey had been rejected on merit
Obtained for a job, presented for admissionThe certificate had been dishonoured
More marksheets sent after a curriculum was asked forThey had answered the query

Read the right-hand column. Every one of those readings is personal, and not one of them is what occurred. The last row is the saddest and the most common response to the first.

The week that decides the months

Which reduces this whole page to a comparison of two weeks against two months.

One week: four written questions to each receiving party, and a letter to the department asking for the scheme of study. Nothing paid, nothing applied for.

That week decides whether the following months are an administrative exercise or a repeated one.

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Who writes to us about this

The letters we get on this subject fall into a few recognisable shapes, and the shape tells us where in the sequence somebody is standing.

The second and the sixth are where everything is still intact. The first and the fifth are the ones that take the longest, and both turn on the same missing document.

What we assemble first

Correspondence, tracing and assembly is what falls to us, and it finishes the moment a view has to be formed.

  1. Write to every receiving party you can name and get the requirement back in writing, with the four specific questions rather than a general one.
  2. Read any refusal you already hold, because even an unhelpful letter usually names the thing that was absent.
  3. Trace the detailed curriculum or scheme of study through all five routes, including the classmate route nobody tries.
  4. Build the year-by-year record of what was studied, with the evidence behind every year and every gap.
  5. Collect and check the supporting set — award, transcript, release paper, medium of instruction — and name precisely what is absent.
  6. Establish what form of translation and attestation the receiving party wants before anything is translated or attested.
  7. Set the file out for whoever forms the view, and leave it scanned and indexed because the next purpose will arrive.

No step above decides anything. Together they are what makes a decision possible at all.

The date we keep honest

One refusal of ours, and on this subject it comes up more than on most.

Every paper we produce is dated the day we produced it, and we will not help anybody pass off a present-day document as one from the time. That applies to a reconstructed syllabus, a note about a gap, and a declaration about a period.

The temptation here is specific and sympathetic: a programme description that cannot be obtained, and an applicant who remembers it perfectly well. But a present-day account offered as a record from the time is the one thing in this file that converts a documentary gap into a question about honesty — and the body relying on it is the party it damages first.

Which desk each answer sits on

Not one row below is ours, and the division is what keeps this inexpensive.

QuestionWhose
What will you accept?The receiving party, in writing
Can a comparison be made?The competent body, on the curriculum
Which body is the right one?The same, and the receiving party
Is the institution recognised?Not ours, about anybody
How do the grades translate?The body. We print no conversion
Can you supply the old syllabus?The institution. We do the asking
Is the file complete?Ours — and it is the whole of our part

Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it.

And one more division worth drawing, because people ask us to blur it. We will write to institutions and to receiving parties on your behalf, and we will ask them plainly for what is needed. We will not characterise your programme to them, offer them a view about what it contained, or describe its standard. We ask; we do not advocate.

What we never certify

Stated once more at the place people most often ask again, and the answer does not move.

We certify nothing. Not that a qualification is valid, recognised or sufficient. Not that a comparison will be given. Not that anybody will accept it. Nothing in our work examines anything, and a page hinting that it did would mislead worse than anything else here.

What you get from us is a complete file and an honest account of what is missing from it.

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Our fee on an equivalence file

For getting this into a state somebody can actually decide on — writing to every receiving party you can name and bringing back their requirement in writing with the four specific questions, including the one nobody asks about what happens if the document cannot be obtained; reading any refusal you already hold, because even a bare letter usually names what was absent; tracing the detailed curriculum or scheme of study through the department, the prospectus of your year, the institution’s archive, a classmate’s papers and any affiliating body that held a copy; building the year-by-year record of what was studied with the evidence behind each year and each interruption; collecting and checking the supporting set and naming exactly what is missing rather than hoping it will not be noticed; establishing what form of translation and attestation is wanted before anything is translated or attested; and setting the whole file out scanned and indexed, because a second purpose almost always arrives — the fee is ₹3,499. Of the 15 – 45 days quoted, our own work is days; the long part is an institution locating a document from years ago.

Charged separately, each for its own reason:

Put plainly: the fee buys a complete file and the right order, not a certificate. The comparison is somebody else’s to make and they make it quickly when the curriculum is in front of them. What takes months is finding that curriculum, and what wastes money is applying before anybody asked the receiving party what they wanted.

And what happens after it

A closing word, because obtaining the document is the middle of this rather than the end.

It will be presented, and the party receiving it will form its own view. It may need attesting or translating for where it is going. A second purpose will appear and may want its own. And the curriculum file you built stays the most valuable thing in the folder, for every one of those.

The certificate was never the asset. The assembled file is — and unlike the certificate, nobody can refuse you that.

Ask the right party first, then find the curriculum

We write to every receiving party and bring back the requirement in writing with four specific questions, read any refusal you already hold, trace the detailed curriculum through five separate routes including the one nobody tries, build the year-by-year record with evidence for every year and gap, collect and check the supporting set and name exactly what is missing, and establish the required form of translation and attestation before anything is done. We do not say whether a comparison can be made, which body should make it, whether any qualification is recognised, or whether anybody will accept it.

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Tis Hazari Court Complex, New Delhi, Delhi 110054

Why this guide is built as it is, and what has been kept out of it

You will not find here: the name of any body that issues or assesses comparisons, any fee, any period, any country, board or university named, any grade or classification conversion, no procedural or submission detail, nothing on whether a given qualification is recognised, and any view on whether a comparison is likely in any case. For a guide to a certificate, that is close to the entire list of things a reader arrives hoping for.

Three reasons, and they rise in seriousness. Fees, periods and procedure are absent because they are set elsewhere and amended, and a page asserting them is read for years past its accuracy. Body names are absent for a sharper reason: which body is appropriate turns on the qualification, the purpose and above all the party at the other end — so naming one here would send some readers to the wrong door, and the wrong door costs a month and a fee. The third reason shaped the page most. A prediction about somebody’s own qualification is the one thing a reader would act on immediately, and acting on it is precisely what stops them doing the free step that actually matters. So we print no likelihood, no conversion and no reassurance, and we put the four questions to the receiving party in their place.

Set the omissions aside and the structure holds whatever any schedule says. That the document is a statement about two institutions and not about the applicant, so nobody has assessed any individual and the best and weakest graduate of one programme receive the identical comparison. That this is a different question rather than an unfairness, because a paper that distinguished between two holders of one award would be doing something it has no basis for. That the issuing body and the relying party are two parties, not one, so a valid comparison in hand is not a yes from whoever asked for it. That the order almost everybody uses is inverted, and the free letter asking four specific questions is the highest-value step in the whole subject. That a comparison is interpretation across a gap between systems that never consulted each other, so it says “comparable” and means it narrowly. That refusals are almost never judgements but documents that could not be produced, and that a missing paper is read against the applicant by default because there is nothing to decide with. And that the paper the whole exercise rests on is the scheme of study rather than the degree — the dullest thing in the folder and the only one that cannot be replaced.

Why the four questions are the part we would keep. If one paragraph of this survives, make it the letter: what document, from whom, in what form, and what will you do if it cannot be obtained. It is free, it takes an afternoon, it occasionally ends the exercise by establishing that something cheaper will do, and in our files it is the difference between one application and three. The fourth question is the one we would fight for — it is how you learn whether you are facing a wall or a preference, and nobody thinks to ask it.

Where to go rather than here. The party asking you for the document, first and in writing, because they are the only ones who can say what satisfies them. A competent body for whether a comparison can be made, once the curriculum is in hand and not before. Your old department rather than the central administration, because the detail lives with the department. A classmate, genuinely — it has rescued more of these files than any official channel and costs a phone call. And the refusal letter you already have, which is more informative than it looks: somewhere in it is the name of the thing nobody could produce.

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Questions people actually ask

We have been asked for an equivalence certificate. What is it?
A statement that one qualification may be treated as comparable to another. And the thing worth noticing first is the subject of that statement. It is not about you. It is about two institutions — a sentence saying that what one of them awards can be read alongside what the other awards. Your name appears on it, and you are not what it is describing.
That seems like a strange distinction to make.
It is the distinction the whole subject turns on, and almost every disappointment here comes from missing it. People read it as a verdict on their education. It is a comparison between two systems. Once you hold that, the refusals stop looking arbitrary, because you can see what was actually being compared and what was never examined at all.
So nobody assesses our actual ability?
Nobody. Two curricula are laid side by side on paper and a view is formed about whether they cover comparable ground. Your attendance, your effort, what you can actually do — none of that enters it. The strongest and the weakest graduate of one programme receive exactly the same comparison, because the comparison was never about either of them.
Is that not unfair?
It is not unfairness, it is a different question being answered. Whether you personally are capable is a question for an interview, a test or a probation period. Whether your qualification sits alongside another is a question about documents. Trouble arrives when somebody expects the second to do the work of the first, and that expectation is usually the applicant’s rather than anybody else’s.
Who actually gives one of these?
A body competent to form that view, and we deliberately do not name any on this page. What matters more than who gives it is who will rely on it, and those are two different parties. We will not state which body applies to your case because that depends on the qualification, the purpose and the receiving party, and getting it wrong is the commonest way weeks are lost here.
Surely a certificate from a competent body is accepted everywhere?
It is not, and no belief in this area costs people more. The body that issues an equivalence is not the body that will act on it. Holding one is not the same as being accepted. The receiving party — an employer, a university, an authority — decides for itself what it will treat as sufficient, and it may want something different, something additional, or something from elsewhere.
So what should we do first?
Ask the receiving party, before anybody applies for anything. Ask them in writing, and ask them specifically. Not “do you accept equivalence certificates”, which invites a yes that costs you a month. Ask what document they require, issued by whom, in what form, and what they will do if that body declines to give one. The written answer to those four outweighs the rest of this page put together.
What if they will not answer in writing?
Press once, politely, and then record what you were told verbally noting when it was said and who said it. An institution that will not put its own requirement in writing is telling you something, and it is usually that the requirement is not settled internally. That is worth knowing before you spend money, not after.
What goes wrong when people skip that step?
They obtain something correct and useless. The commonest file we see is somebody who holds a perfectly valid comparison that the party asking will not act on, because it came from the wrong place or addresses the wrong purpose. Nothing was done badly. The sequence was simply inverted, and the sequence here is the whole of the difficulty.
Why do these get refused?
Almost never because somebody judged your education poorly. They are refused because of what could not be shown. A curriculum that could not be produced, a scheme of study nobody could supply, a duration or structure that did not line up, a gap nobody could explain. The refusal is nearly always about a missing document rather than about a conclusion anybody reached.
What is the document that actually decides it?
Not your degree certificate, which surprises everybody. It is the detailed curriculum or scheme of study — the paper that says what was taught, for how long, and in what structure. A comparison cannot be made without it. And it is the one document no student keeps, because at the time it looks like an administrative handout rather than the key to everything.
We do not have that. Is it hopeless?
Not at all, but it is the thing to start looking for today rather than next month. It usually still exists somewhere — with the department, in an old prospectus, in the institution’s own archive, in a classmate’s file, occasionally in a library copy. What is true is that institutions stop issuing these after some years, and the search gets harder with every year that passes.
Where else might it be?
Five places, and we try all of them. The department rather than the central office, which is where the detail lives. An old prospectus or handbook from your year. The institution’s library or archive. A classmate who kept their papers. And occasionally a regulator or affiliating body that held a copy at the time. Any one of them may produce it.
What does our own evidence contribute, then?
Everything about the facts, and nothing about the conclusion. Your transcripts, your marksheets, your migration paperwork and your medium of instruction certificate establish what happened. They cannot establish what it is comparable to. People send more and more personal documents hoping to influence a judgement that is not being made about them.
Is this the same as getting our degree verified?
Two entirely different questions and they are routinely conflated. Verification asks whether the qualification exists. Equivalence asks what it is comparable to. A degree can be perfectly genuine and have no equivalence anywhere; a comparison can exist for a qualification nobody has yet confirmed. Most receiving parties eventually want both, and they come from different places.
Does an equivalence last forever?
Not in the way people hope, and this is worth planning around. It is never quite a one-time exercise. A different receiving party may want its own; a comparison given for one purpose does not necessarily carry to another purpose; and what was comparable at one point may be looked at afresh later. Treat it as a document for a purpose rather than a permanent attribute.
Can we use one we obtained years ago?
Possibly, and the only party who can answer that is the one you are giving it to. Ask them whether they will accept an older one before you assume it, and before you pay for a new one. Both directions of that mistake are common: people re-apply when they did not need to, and people rely on an old document that the receiving party had already decided against.
Will you tell us whether we are likely to get one?
No, and a page or a person offering to predict it is selling comfort. Whether a comparison can be made is a determination by a competent body on your actual curriculum, and it depends on material that in most cases nobody has yet assembled. What we can tell you is whether your file is complete enough for that determination to be made at all, which is usually where these stall.
Will you say whether our qualification is valid?
That is a separate question again, and also not ours. We do not opine on whether any institution, programme or award is recognised, valid or sufficient for anything. That is for the receiving party and for the competent body, and we print no body name, no fee, no period and no grading comparison anywhere on this page.
What is the realistic timeframe?
Reckon on 15 – 45 days, and know where that time goes, because it is not where people expect. Our part is tracing and assembling, which is days. The long stretch is an institution finding a curriculum document from years ago, and that is the step that turns a three-week file into a three-month one. Starting the search early is the only thing that shortens this.
What is in your fee?
Finding the paper the whole thing rests on, and getting the sequence right. We write to the receiving party and get their requirement in writing, with the four specific questions rather than a general one. We trace the curriculum or scheme of study through every route it survives on. We build the year-by-year record of what was studied, with dates and the evidence behind each. We assemble your existing documents and name precisely what is missing. And we set the whole file out for whoever will form the view. We decide nothing and predict nothing.
Draw me the line you will not cross.
Whether a comparison can be made; which body should make it; whether any institution or award is recognised; whether a receiving party will accept what you obtain; what any of it costs; and how any grades convert. The first four belong to the competent body and to the receiving party, and both answer in writing if asked in writing. We assemble; they decide.
Our case involves a gap in the years. Does that matter?
It frequently comes up and it is usually explainable rather than fatal. What matters is that the gap is accounted for on paper rather than left as a silence, because an unexplained interruption in a record invites a question nobody is present to answer. A statement covering the period is often part of the file, and it belongs in it from the beginning rather than being produced in response to a query.
Our documents are in another language.
Then that is a step before this one, and the order matters. A comparison cannot be made from documents nobody at the receiving end can read, and translation has its own requirements about who certifies it. Ask the receiving party what form of translation they want before anybody translates anything, because redoing a translation to a different standard is an avoidable cost.
Which three things should we hunt down first?
Three items; the middle one sets how long this takes. The name and contact of whoever is asking you for this, so the requirement can be put in writing. Anything at all describing what you studied — a syllabus, a scheme, a prospectus, a handbook, even a photograph of a notice board. And the full list of your institutions with the years, including any you attended briefly. With the second one in hand, this is a short file.
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