Built on the core vision of the National Education Policy or NEP 2020 to create a connected and multidisciplinary learning system, a new Aadhaar-like card is in circulation to implement the idea of ‘One Nation, One Student ID’.
Unboxing The ABC ID: A Digilocker For Authenticated Academic Credentials
Every student in India, from pre-primary to higher education, now needs to register for a unique 12-digit code to digitally store, manage and access all their academic credits, including degrees, diplomas and certificates, training and skilling details, co-curricular accomplishments or any other achievements obtained from formal educational channels and informal learning.
Known as ABC (Academic Bank of Credits) IDs, these Aadhaar-like lifelong student IDs are rolled out by APAAR (acronym for Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry) with the idea of authenticating students’ identities through their Aadhaar IDs and other official documents (overseas students can use passports).
In simple terms, it is a registry (broadly, a well-managed and regularly updated database) covering the country’s entire education ecosystem (including students, schools, higher education institutes, teachers, and skill providers), allowing students to store the credits earned in the Academic Bank of Credits in the Digilocker.
“The Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) is where the records of academic credits are deposited by institutions/universities. The account number or the ID to access the same will be called APAAR ID, which is permanent (like Aadhaar). Those seeking admission to educational institutions or applying for jobs only need to share their APAAR IDs, and their academic records can be authenticated in seconds,” said Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman of National Educational Technology Forum, National Board of Accreditation and National Assessment and Accreditation Council and the man behind the APAAR project.
This allows the institution or the company offering admission, job or scholarship to decide quickly. Earlier, candidates had to send in photocopies signed by gazetted officers as part of the authentication process.
However, access to authenticated digital records means photocopying of documents will no longer be required and the risk of faked records will be minimised. Besides, data can only be uploaded by institutions and universities, which means anyone can rely on this data authenticated at the source. So, depositing credits at the ABC is like building a curriculum vitae.
The APAAR ID of a student is linked to the ABC, a digital repository developed in conjunction with the National Academic Depository (NAD). Whenever academic credits are generated and uploaded by educational institutions, whether after a full academic year, just one semester, or on any specific occasion, these get added to the ABC via the National Credit Framework (NCrF), responsible for the creditisation of all learning outcomes. As the ABC data is deemed official nationwide, access to academic information and verification will be fast and seamless.
To speed up the procedure, the Union Ministry of Education (MoE) has recently notified state governments and UTs to implement APAAR ID. All registered educational institutions have been asked to procure parents’ consent and keep their students’ degrees and awards in the digital locker to ensure authenticity and safe storage.
