New national student ID scheme requires parental consent for student registrations

Maharashtra schools in India are required to obtain parental consent to issue unique student identity numbers under the "One National, One Student" initiative. These IDs will track students' progress and personal information. Teachers are also being asked to update additional student details, causing concern among teachers. Special meetings will be held to raise awareness about the IDs, and schools will mark students as "consented" or "not consented" in the database. The APAAR ID will be used for various purposes, including monitoring drop-out rates and accessing educational resources. Teachers have opposed the additional administrative workload.

Mumbai: Maharashtra schools are now tasked with obtaining parental consent to issue unique student identity numbers under the Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) ID, as part of the central government’s “One National, One Student” initiative. These IDs will be tailored to each student, tracking their educational progress, achievements, and other personal information.

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Furthermore, the Maharashtra government has instructed teachers to update additional student details such as blood type, height, and weight in the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) data. However, this expansion of non-academic responsibilities has caused concern among teachers.

To raise awareness about the APAAR ID among parents and explain its utility, schools have been asked to hold special Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) meetings from October 16 to 18. Following this, schools will be required to mark each student as “consented” or “not consented” in the UDISE database.

The Maharashtra School Education Department has issued a letter addressed to the Commissioner of Education, along with a consent form and a list of use cases for the new ID provided by the Central Education Ministry. The consent form states, “I consent to share my Aadhaar Number and demographic information issued by UIDAI with the Ministry of Education for the purpose of creating an APAAR ID.”

TG Sitharam, chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in an event in Mumbai, said, “APAAR and the National Credit Framework (NCrF) generate a QR code for every learner.”

Meanwhile, teachers across the state have opposed the work of data entry. Pandurang Kengar, representing school principals’ association in Mumbai, expressed concerns about the increasing administrative workload on schools. He said, “Schools had recently completed updating students’ Aadhaar cards in the UDISE system, and now they are tasked with creating new ID cards and updating students’ physical attributes.”

Jalindar Sarode, representative of Shikshak Bharti, stated that if the government imposes new work every day, it will turn teachers into data entry operators. “Details of every student is available on UDISE. Then why is new data required. This only poses additional burden on teachers,” said Sarode.