Students and faculty at all levels across the country will be issued single, common identities authenticated by Aadhaar as a national repository under the Education Ecosystem Registry (EER) scheme, set to be launched by August 15, said a top official.

The scheme to be launched under the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) proposes a digital registry for all students (from primary school up to higher education), teachers, and faculty members across schools, colleges, universities, and institutes, both government and private, besides educational institutions, academic and industry partners including start-ups under one umbrella.

The initiative is in line with the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which envisages an authentic digital database in the form of an education ecosystem registry. It is being developed under the union ministry of education along with other government stakeholders including NIC and UIDAI.

The proposed EER is a repository of academic and skill-based achievements of students, faculty, and institutions. It enables users to verify and maintain their data by digitally transforming the education sector. It allows a unified system for stakeholders to track learner outcomes and inform policy-making processes.

However, according to officials, so far it is not mandatory for institutions to submit their data, but they will be asked to participate actively in the registry.

“The EER portal is ready. The types of fields to be kept in the database and other technical details may be worked out by respective departments in consultation with the steering committee,” said Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairperson, NETF.

A steering committee led by Sahasrabudhe was constituted having members from the key ministries and other agencies last year to implement the registry project. The registry will allow important linkages to other departments and datasets including Academic Bank of Credits (ABC), which is where student documents are stored digitally.

“Having a national education registry is extremely important to connect all learners, education providers, and institutions across the country for tracking key performance indicators and an authentic database allowing efficient exchange of verified and updated information. It will help diverse groups with diverse needs to be provided equitable access, trace the journey of students and empower them through policy interventions,” he said.

After detailed discussions, he added, it was decided that there is a need for a single, common, student and faculty registration across departments. It should not be the case that when in school, a student has a different ID and when the same student is in college or another higher education institution, he/she has a different ID.

“The idea is that there should be a unique, single, common ID for authentication of data (available as digitally signed certificates). Student registry will assign the ID based on Aadhaar authentication by UIDAI, which will be used as a common, digital ID for student registry.

Also, for those who don’t wish to give Aadhaar details, PAN-authenticated or ABC IDs can be issued as common ID for students and teachers. ABC IDs have already been issued to a section of students and faculty.

In the case of state governments, which maintain their own data, they will be allowed to continue this provided they follow the same standard and structure, as given in the EER, so that it can be shared through APIs (Application Programming Interface that allows exchange of data between two systems).