The ABCs of the APAAR ID

Close to 1,800 academic institutions are on board the Academic Bank of Credit, but only 30% have actually uploaded credit data. As many as 25,000 crore APAAR student IDs have been generated

- Shradha Chettri

The education ministry has set into motion the process for assigning unique identification numbers to all 30 crore students in the country. The Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR), generated from the school level, will dovetail into the Academic Bank of Credit (ABC) system. This initiative – being described as “onenation, one student ID” – will enable the tracking of students from school to higher education and maintain their academic records.

Institutions across the country are now taking steps to facilitate this student-id generation. They are embedding registration links on their exam forms; setting up interactive and bilingual notice boards; creating awareness videos and collaborating with district authorities to get students their 12-digit biometric-based identification numbers, or Aadhaar, on which the student ID is based.

Promoted as one of the most important pieces of digital public infrastructure (DPI) created by the Narendra Modi government, APAAR is a specialised identification system designed in alignment with the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Like Aadhaar, it is a unique 12-digit ID using which students can store their credentials in one place, right from school to higher education. For higher educational institutions, the APAAR and ABC IDs will eventually be used interchangeably. ABC houses the credits earned by students during their course of study, but only the institution can add credits to the ABC accounts.