Over 9 Crore APAAR IDs Issued To School Students In 3 Months, UDISE+ Data Used As Registry Now – News18

Last Updated:January 06, 2025, 14:25 IST

The Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) ID — a unique 12-digit identification number — was started as part of establishing the National Digital Education Architecture proposed by the Centre in the 2021-22 union budget

The Union government has so far created over nine crore APAAR IDs for students in the school education system over the last three months since the initiative was formally rolled out under the ‘One Nation One Student ID’ initiative, where unique, Aadhar-verified digital IDs are issued to students to track their academic progress, officials said.

According to officials in the education ministry, starting 2022-23, a new methodology was adopted for collection of data for the Unified District Information System for School Education Plus (UDISE+), which includes details of students such as their names, parents’ names, addresses etc and a distinct code is assigned to each like a registry.

“This code for each student on UDISE portal now serves as a provisional APAAR ID which, when linked to their Aadhaar number, becomes an APAAR ID. We have issued over nine crore APAAR IDs in just over the last three months,” said a senior official.

There are around 25 crore students in the school education system enrolled across 14.6 lakh schools in India.

The Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) ID — a unique 12-digit identification number — was started as part of establishing the National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) proposed by the Centre in the 2021-22 union budget. This was introduced in line with the new National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, which envisages expansion of digital infrastructure in the education sector.

The APAAR IDs, which will be issued for students from pre-primary to higher education, were launched on February 13, 2024, by Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The IDs provide a record of students’ academic achievements, including marksheets, degrees, scholarship, awards, and credits, among others. It is intended to help students in seamless transition for transfer across schools, cities, or districts. It is also expected to track out-of-school children and those dropping out at any stage of education.

“We have started from the top from classes 9-12 since they are on the verge of moving into the higher education system. There is a variation across states and classes. To ensure states can manage, we have told them to advise respective school boards to share class 10 and 12 board results in DigiLocker,” the official said.

Eventually, the APAAR IDs will cover even pre-primary students, including those enrolled in Aanganwadi centres, the official added.

While states have been asked to push for digital infrastructure, the task is clearly fraught with challenges, with schools informing state education authorities of disparities in data, infrastructural issues such as inaccessible internet and the excessive burden of collecting similar data every few years when a new programme is launched. There are reportedly issues with updating parents’ contact numbers for sending OTPs in case the numbers are not in use anymore or have changed. The data collection and updating is also taking a toll on teaching hours. Some of these issues were raised and discussed at the 8th CII National School Education Summit held in December last year.