The school education department launched the Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) using Common Service Centres (CSCs) in remote villages across the country on Wednesday.
The goal of APAAR is to set up a unified student identification system called 'One Nation, One Student ID'.
APAAR is part of the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) requiring all college/university students to register on the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC). Under the new rule, possessing an ABC ID is mandatory for college or university admission.
Launching the programme, Sanjay Kumar, secretary of the Department of School Education and Literacy, highlighted the growing digital services in the country and how they can benefit school education through CSCs. He emphasised providing provisional APAAR IDs to all school children immediately, verifying them with Aadhaar, and linking them to Digi Locker.
A business model for this service for village-level entrepreneurs (VLEs) is also under consideration, aiming to make school and higher education more transparent and accessible.
K Sanjay Murthy, secretary of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, stressed the government's use of technology platforms like Samarth, Swayam, and Diksha for student benefit, aiming to cover at least 10,000 institutions under Samarth in the next 1.5 years.
Mr Murthy noted the significant role of CSCs in APAAR and Samarth and likened the Academic Bank of Credits to the National Academic Depository (NAD), emphasising its administration by academic institutions.
Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), said that APAAR ID remains with students for life, enabling future credit accumulation by passing exams without needing certificates.
What is the Academic Bank of Credit?
The Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) functions as a digital storage platform where students can easily access its advantages without the need to visit any other location besides the nearest CSC. Within this digital credit repository, students' marks and personal details are stored.
With the assistance of this identification, students can easily transition between institutions for undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Universities can now retrieve students' data with a simple click using the ABC ID.
It serves as a virtual repository for credits accumulated by individual students during their educational journey, covering comprehensive details about their academic performance across various institutions. These credits can be used in diverse ways throughout their studies. The proposal to implement the Academic Bank of Credit in education originated from the NEP 2020.