New Delhi: The Union education ministry sent a letter to all chief secretaries on October 11 regarding the creation of unique ID numbers for students across the country, the Indian Express reported.Known as the ‘automated permanent academic account registry’ (APAAR), the voluntary unique ID programme is in line with the National Education Policy 2020 and exists in addition to a given student’s Aadhaar number.A student’s APAAR ID will track their achievements and progress, and allow them to retrieve their academic record for entrance exams, admissions, scholarship disbursement or employment, the Free Press Journal reported.It will also help government agencies monitor dropouts.But a student’s Aadhaar data will serve as the basis for their APAAR ID.The Times of India reported that the creation of a student’s APAAR ID will require their parents’ consent.Maharashtra’s government has asked all schools to take consent from parents for the creation of students’ APAAR IDs, the Express’s report said.Schools have also been asked to hold special parent-teacher association meetings between Wednesday (October 16) and Friday to raise awareness about APAAR IDs among parents, the Hindustan Times reported.Following this, they will be required to mark each student as “consented” or “not consented” in a Union government education database, HT’s report added.A brief by the Union education ministry said that as of July this year – two years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the APAAR programme – 1.24 crore APAAR IDs had been created across the country.Now, educators have voiced their apprehensions about the APAAR ID system, pointing out that having to collect data for students’ APAAR IDs was another item in an increasing list of non-academic tasks.“Schools just completed work of students’ Aadhaar card update on UDISE [Unified District Information System for Education]. Now, a new ID card is in the making. We also have to update each student’s height, weight and blood-group on UDISE. This leaves us no time to focus on academics,” Pandurang Kengar, a member of a school principals’ association from Mumbai, told the Indian Express.Jalindar Sarode, representative of Shikshak Bharti, told the Hindustan Times that teachers will turn into data entry operators if the government imposes new work every day.“Details of every student is available on UDISE. Then why is new data required? This only poses additional burden on teachers,” the newspaper quoted Sarode as saying.The Free Press Journal cited educators as saying that while the APAAR programme is voluntary, schools will be forced to ensure the participation of all stakeholders, much like Aadhaar verifications.Having an Aadhaar number has become increasingly necessary to access common services in India.Experts have also criticised the Union government’s policy of making Aadhaar virtually compulsory for accessing some government schemes.“We have seen in scheme after scheme that ‘voluntary’ Aadhaar-linking ended up reducing the number of beneficiaries as the government claimed that those who didn’t link it were either ‘ghosts’, when in fact they were very much alive,” economist Reetika Khera told The Wire.FPJ also quoted Kishore Darak, a Maharashtra-based educator, as saying that APAAR’s linkage with Aadhaar makes it vulnerable to misuse by third parties.“Looking at the overall notion and laws of confidentiality in the country, it’s unlikely that the data will remain safe. Linking APAAR with Aadhaar will have a direct effect of the latter being made mandatory. It will violate the Supreme Court’s verdict on Aadhaar and the Right to Education Act, which stipulates that no child can be denied schooling and other entitlements,” Darak said.
