Registration at the university and issuing, verifying, and attesting academic certificates occur in separate processes. There is no link between the MOHE system and university systems, which causes some difficulties for students. Blockchain technology is disruptive, immutable and is a decentralized solution for many industries. These include smart contracts self-executing programs that automate the execution of contracts and decrease reliance on middle parties while increasing security. This work looks into the use of blockchain, and its smart contracts, to innovate the process of verification and control of students’ certification. BlockPEDC is blockchain system that automates the process of issuing, storing and verifying academic credentials. It solves problems of fraud, inefficiency, and problems of centralization that are present in the traditional system. Using Ethereum as the blockchain platform and Solidity for smart contract development ensures secure and real-time access to verifiable credentials. This innovation is particularly crucial in regions affected by conflicts, such as Palestine, where physical and cyber risks disrupt institutional operations. Findings suggest that integrating smart contracts can significantly enhance the credibility and efficiency of certificate management systems (Fartitchou, et al. in BlockMEDC: Blockchain Smart Contracts for Securing Moroccan Higher Education Digital Certificates arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.07258, 2024). Furthermore, this research highlights blockchain-based systems’ scalability and privacy challenges and proposes mitigation strategies (Taherdoost in Information 14:117, 2023). By leveraging blockchain's transformative capabilities, this study creates a robust and transparent educational credentialing system that benefits students, institutions, and employers globally. The Palestinian MOHE, Ministry of High Education, will own and be responsible for the authorized institutions that use the system. However, every university can utilize this system to store students’ data on the blockchain, introduce system’s services to their students, verify certificates, and access allowed data to any company or organization they want to verify.