Course & Exam Certificates for Tuition Centres, QR-Verified

A student finishes a spoken-English course, a crash batch or your term-end final test. The parent asks, "Will there be a certificate?" Most centres answer with a Word template, a printer and an evening of typing names. A year later, someone asks whether that paper is genuine, and nobody can say.

This guide covers how certificates work in TuitionDesk: what you can issue, what you can only file, how the QR code verification works, and what it deliberately does not show. It also covers the plan limits, so you know what to expect before you set it up.

Two kinds of paper: centre-issued and external

The first decision is whose certificate it is. TuitionDesk keeps the two kinds apart, because mixing them is how fake-looking paperwork gets created.

	Centre-issued	External (board / exam body)
Who issues it	Your centre	A board, Trinity, ABRSM, an exam institute and so on
What TuitionDesk does	Generates the certificate PDF	Stores the scan you or the parent upload
Typical use	Course completion, exam-preparation completion	NEET, board marksheet copies, music grade certificates
Needs document storage	Only to keep the PDF in Documents	Yes

TuitionDesk does not print a board certificate on behalf of anyone. If the exam is run by someone else, you file the scan against the student, so the family and the centre share one record.

Course and exam certificates (centre-issued or filed) are a Growth-plan-and-above feature by default. Filing an external scan also needs document storage on the plan. Check the pricing page for the current plan details.

Setting it up for a class

The settings sit on the class (batch) or on the course it belongs to, so you configure it once rather than per student.

Open the class and turn on what applies: centre course certificate, centre exam certificate and/or filing external exam certificates.
On each student's profile, set their Target exams. These are the exams that student is preparing for.
Open the class certificate panel. It lists each student and shows which papers are still missing.
Issue for selected students or the whole class, for the course or for one named exam.

Only students whose target exams include that exam get an exam certificate. A centre preparing 12 students for three different exams does not end up with 36 certificates by accident.

The centre-issued PDF prints your centre logo if you uploaded one in Settings, and the student photo from their profile if there is one. You can untick the photo on the issue panel if you prefer a name-only certificate.

Re-issuing without duplicates

Typos happen. If a student already has that certificate, TuitionDesk marks it already issued and asks what you want to do with the date:

keep the original date,
use today's date, or
pick another date.

Re-issuing replaces the same PDF in Documents. It does not leave a second copy behind, so the folder stays clean and storage is not wasted.

What the parent sees

Parents download their child's certificate from the parent portal, in the child's documents section. They do not need to ask the front desk or wait for a WhatsApp forward. If your plan does not include certificates, the parent portal simply shows none instead of an error.

If you are not yet using the portal, see how the parent portal reduces endless calls.

Pass-mark certificates from final exams

The second route is automatic and tied to results. When you create a Final assessment, you can enable a certificate and set a pass percent. If you do not set one, TuitionDesk uses 40%.

A certificate is available only when all of this is true:

the assessment is a Final (not practice or continuous),
certificates are switched on for that assessment,
you have published the results,
the student's attempt is submitted and scored, and
the score meets the pass percent.

A student who misses the pass mark gets no certificate. There is no way to download one for a failed attempt from the standard flow. For setting up the assessment itself, see online quizzes and assessments for tuition centres.

The QR code: proof, not just a printed ID

On the Growth plan and above, the pass-mark certificate PDF carries a QR code in the lower-right corner. Scanning it opens a public page, with no login needed, that shows:

the student's name,
the assessment title,
your centre's name and logo,
the result date, and
a Verified by TuitionDesk confirmation with a Passed result.

An employer, a college admissions desk or another parent can check the paper in a few seconds instead of phoning you. The link is stable: it is created the first time the certificate is downloaded and stays the same on every re-download. A certificate handed out a year ago still resolves.

On Free and Starter, enabling the certificate still produces a plain PDF with no QR code.

What the public page does not show

The verification page is deliberately minimal. It shows only what the printed certificate already shows. By default it shows Passed and not the exact mark, so a stranger with the link cannot compare one student's score with another's.

If your centre wants the exact score visible, an owner can turn on Show the exact score on the public verification page under Settings, Certificate verification. Think about this before enabling it. Scores are a child's data, and parents may not expect the mark to be on a public link.

The QR code applies to pass-mark certificates generated from Final assessments. Course and exam certificates issued from the class panel are centre-issued PDFs without a QR code. Do not tell parents every certificate is QR-verifiable.

Which certificate for which situation

Situation	What to use	QR code
Student completes a course or batch	Centre course certificate from the class panel	No
Centre prepares students for a named exam	Centre exam certificate (target exam must match)	No
Student passes your term-end or mock final	Final assessment with certificate enabled	Yes, Growth and above
Student passes a board or music-grade exam	File the scan against the student	Not applicable

A rollout that works

Start with one finishing batch and use the course certificate to test the layout and logo.
Fill in target exams for those students before issuing exam certificates.
For your next final test, enable the certificate and set a pass percent you can defend to parents.
Print one with the QR code and scan it yourself before you hand any out.
Decide once, as a team, whether the public page shows scores. Most centres should leave it on Passed only.

Training institutes, language classes and music or sports academies, where a certificate has real value to the learner, tend to get the most from this. See software for training institutes for the wider picture.

Frequently asked questions

Can I issue a certificate on the Free or Starter plan? Course and exam certificates from the class panel are Growth-and-above by default. A pass-mark certificate PDF can be generated on lower plans, but without the QR code. Confirm the details on the pricing page.

Does TuitionDesk create board or exam-body certificates? No. You file the scan of the real certificate. TuitionDesk only generates centre-issued certificates.

Can a parent verify a certificate without an account? Yes. The QR code opens a public page that needs no login.

Will the QR page expose my students' marks? Not by default. It shows Passed only, unless an owner opts in to showing the exact score.

Does the certificate say TuitionDesk on it? Centre-issued certificates use the TuitionDesk look and carry a "Prepared with TuitionDesk" footer, with your logo when you have uploaded one.

Make your certificates verifiable

Create your centre, set up a class and issue your first certificate. Start free on TuitionDesk and upgrade to the Growth plan when you want certificates and QR verification.