Will One Nation One ID Benefit School Students?

Summarize with:

Rajneesh De, Consulting Editor, APAC News Network

The Union Education Ministry plans to launch the ‘Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR)’ scheme under the NEP 2020. The ‘One Nation One Student ID’ scheme will create a unique ID number for school students across India.

APAAR Benefits

The question is how will this lifelong ID number benefit school students? Apparently the Ministry claims that the APAAR number will track students’ achievements and academic journeys. This ID, which will be unique to each student, will track the educational progress, achievements and other particulars about specific student. It will also make transfer from one school to another easier and the entire process much less complicated, critical for students with parents having transferable jobs.

AICTE goes further in extolling the virtues of APAAR. “APAAR and National Credit Framework will be the QR code for learners across India. Every skill they pick up will be credited here,” asserts T G Sitharaman, AICTE chairman. The system will also help students digitally store their exam results as well as sports, Olympiad and other academic and non-academic outcomes.

The APAAR will also help keep a track of students dropping out so it can mainstream them. Irrespective of the students being enrolled in government or private educational institutions, the APAAR Card is aimed to serve as a digital identity repository for various academic records and accomplishments.

Each APAAR Card is equipped with a unique 12-digit APAAR number, serving as a distinctive identifier for every student. This will underscore the importance of this identifier in maintaining the integrity and security of the academic records stored within the APAAR Card. Building upon the APAAR ID Card, the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) will play a pivotal role in the NEP.

“The Ministry of Education will generate APAAR ID based on Aadhaar number of each student for which separate consent of the parents is required,” states the letter by the Education ministry. The states have also asked teachers to update blood group, height and weight of students in UDISE data. While extolling the benefits of APAAR, this might also open up a Pandora’s box of challenges.

APAAR Concerns

There are already ongoing concerns about Aadhaar’s data security, and the numerous instances of data breaches. In this scenario, many people have raised concerns about the initiation of the APAAR registration process.

School authorities have raised the issue of already pending Aadhaar verification of students, which is kept optional. The addition of the APAAR registry can increase the administrative burden on the teaching faculty.

The biggest challenge will be perhaps to ensure the security and privacy of such sensitive data of the school students. No wonder therefore that parents’ consent is essential for this to be functional. The registration to this education ecosystem will be done with parent’s consent and the states and UTs have been directed to begin the process for the same.

Furthermore, the government has assured that the data will remain confidential and the parents can withdraw their consent anytime they wish to. There is further scope of manipulation of data for nefarious purposes. The enrolment process will be carried out by the school, with the consent of their parents, who will also be able to withdraw their consent at any given point of time. The government assured that the data will be shared only with concerned government agencies if and when required. The data collected on each student by the schools will be subsequently stored in a centrally functioning District Information for Education portal.

Last but not the least, the growing weight of non-academic tasks has created unrest amongst teachers. School principals were already struggling to update the Aadhaar details of students on the portal. Most of the schools had just finished work on students’ AADHAAR Card update on UDISE. And immediately there is a new ID card is in the making. Now we have to start updating the basic statistics of each student’s height, weight and blood-group on UDISE. This will leave us with little time to focus on academics,” complains Pandurang Kengar from school principals’ association in Mumbai.

The schools have been asked by the state education departments to conduct meetings with teachers and parents between October 16-18 to discuss the importance and significance of creating an APAAR ID for the students. Watch this space for the next developments.