Government Plans 'One Nation, One ID' for all School Students

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The Ministry of Education issued a letter to all the states, asking them to obtain the consent of the parents at all the schools under their jurisdiction for creating APAAR IDs for their children.

The central government has begun the process of introducing a new unique identification for schoolchildren that will enable them to digitally store their academic achievements and credit scores. The Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry or APAAR, which will be linked to the students' Aadhar ID, has been envisaged as a universal mechanism for recording and retrieving data and documents related to students' progress throughout their academic journey.

Through this unique ID, the students will be able to store everything from their exam results to add-on courses to their accomplishments in sports and co-curricular activities in Digilocker, the government's digital wallet, and use them in the future for higher education and employment.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Education issued a letter to all the states, asking them to obtain the consent of the parents at all the schools under their jurisdiction for creating APAAR IDs for their children.

For this purpose, the ministry said, the schools must conduct a three-day Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) meeting next week and enter the parents' consent, or lack of it, in the Centre's Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) database.

Following the directive, the State School Education Department has asked the Education Commissioner Suraj Mandhare to complete the exercise in a time-bound manner.

The initiative is part of an effort under the National Education Policy (NEP) to bring flexibility to the education system by allowing students to seamlessly move across institutes and disciplines. The government has already introduced APAAR IDs for college students to access the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), an online repository of credit scores, and is now bringing it to the school level.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF), an autonomous body under the Education Ministry, said that the government hopes to bring at least half of around 30 crore students under the APAAR system. "This will be like a life-long CV for the students. They will no longer have to carry hard copies of their academic documents. The APAAR record will provide authenticity when students apply for the education of a job.

If students move from one school to another due to the transfer of their parents, they will no longer have to go through the hassle of getting a transfer certificate and other documents. We will bring all education institutes and even the organisations offering vocational courses on board," he said.