Abstract
<jats:p>The article proposes a governance mechanism for a blockchain-based decentralized certification system to validate school students’ achievements in additional IT education. The relevance stems from the rapid growth of project-based and short-term learning formats and the fragmentation of credentials, which undermines trust and portability across organizations. The study aims to develop a governance model (stakeholders, roles, responsibilities, access rules), describe an implementation algorithm, and propose an effectiveness evaluation framework at institutional and regional levels. It is argued that technological robustness is unattainable without institutional design: distribution of authority, validation and revocation procedures, and separation of data layers in compliance with minors’ personal data protection requirements. A permissioned consortiumbased distributed ledger architecture is considered, where education providers issue verifiable registry records and verifiers access credential status through controlled mechanisms. The paper also links registry-based certification with the concept of micro-credentials for modular IT learning outcomes and specifies effect metrics: reduced verification transaction costs, shorter confirmation time, improved transparency, and lower fraud risks.</jats:p>