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The Union Government is likely to begin registering students for creating an Aadhaar-linked unique identity system from the month of August.
In March, the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) came out with a public document elaborating the need for an Education Ecosystem Registry (EER), which will be a repository of the educational and skill-based achievements of students for their whole life.
“The new National Education Policy talks about multidisciplinary education, the ‘Academic Bank of Credits’, the National Education Technology Forum, and students going from one domain to another domain. We need to authenticate for transfer of grades from one area to another. The uniqueness of students is essential. We have started a registry project under which educational institutions, faculty, and students will be registered,” Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairperson, NETF, said on the sidelines of the G-20 Third Education Working Group (EdWG) meeting that got underway in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday.
“When a student joins school in the age of three, he or she will have their own ‘EduLocker’. The whole educational journey of a student — from general to professional and additional courses such as sports and culture to skill-based training — will remain recorded in the registry,” Dr. Sahasrabudhe said.
“The bio-data of students will be developed gradually. We need a unique identity number under which students’ data will be incorporated with Aadhaar authentication,” he said.
“Students will be benefited by a unique identity number. The registry will lead students to find appropriate courses in colleges where fee is relatively low. It will help students take decisions. From now on, students will not need to fill up forms whenever he or she seeks admission in a new institute. The student information can be checked online,” Dr. Sahasrabudhe added.
The EER document says the registries will be “high trust and low-cost infrastructure”. “The ability for the user to access their data and credentials and request correction if required is extremely powerful — avoiding their exclusion from benefits and services due to credentials mismatch,” it says.
In addition, having verified data within various registries with open Application Programming Interfaces (for consented access and sharing) allows other systems to onboard users with ease and at a low cost by eliminating repeated data collection and validation, the document says. Educational institutes and faculty will also have to register with the EER.
The third EdWG meeting under the G-20 kicked off in Bhubaneswar with over 60 delegates from member and invitee countries, and international organisations participating in the three-day meeting. Speaking on the occasion, Subhas Sarkar, Union Minister of State for Education, emphasised the importance of skills and lifelong learning.