Saying "certificate is worthless could be ambigous depending on one view-point. Certificate and education are two different things entirely, one can be educated and yet uncertified in different field ranging from schools, labour, trainings etc.

Looking at Bill Gate success standpoint, Billy is an educated fellow but (if records are anything to go by) uncertified as we learnt he dropped out of the university. There are a host of other successful people in our world who don't have a certificate in their field but are successful in such field, and also a bunch of others who dumped their certificates after getting it.

So if a fellow tells me certificate is worthless to him/her i wouldn't argue with him, there are different ways to get the figure 10, 1+9 =10, 2+8=10 3+7=10 4+6=10 5+5 is still 10.