Students in several schools are facing a problem of sorts as those who have not got their Aadhaar are being asked to get one and submit details before he or she can be considered for a school trip. Aadhaar number has also been made mandatory for submitting school assignments.
Despite the Supreme Court ruling that Aadhaar should not be made mandatory to get government subsidies, the Education Department, sources said, has been “pushing” students to give their Aadhaar number to link the details to its database.
While department officials claimed that submitting Aadhaar was not mandatory, headmasters of several schools have been insisting that students produce their Aadhaar card, and they have told those without Aadhaar to mandatorily register for it. For students who do not have Aadhaar, the department plans to facilitate setting up of camps in schools to ensure that the students are enrolled.
The move follows the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) directive. The MHRD has asked officials of the State Education Department to complete the process on a war-footing. All headmasters have been told to submit details of students who have Aadhaar by October 17.
Repeated deadlines
The department has given repeated deadlines to headmasters to provide Aadhaar details of students to link them to the State government's ambitious ‘Hejje Gurutu’ project to provide a 17-digit code to all students from class 1 to class 10 in an effort to streamline academic performance.
As per the department’s estimate, 60.3 lakh, of the 1.01 crore students in classes one to 10 in all schools (government, aided and unaided), have said to have an Aadhaar card.
P.C. Jaffer, State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, said the department would make provisions to ensure that Aadhaar camps were set up in schools. A meeting is scheduled shortly to review the progress of this process.
Besides enrolling students for Aadhaar, all Education Department employees, including teachers and non-teaching staff members of aided and government schools have also been asked to mandatorily provide their Aadhaar number to link it to their salary accounts.
A teacher of a north Bengaluru school said many students did not have Aadhaar but they were being pushed to get one, following the department’s orders.
As proxy roll number?
The long-term plans of the MHRD are also to make Aadhaar as a proxy roll number. A letter by the Director of the Department of School Education and Literacy to the Secretary of Primary and Secondary Education, Karnataka, requesting the State government to implement Aadhaar among students, states, “Enrolment of students with Aadhaar should also be done. Department (State Education) may also explore the possibility of using Aadhaar as a proxy roll number for (students) appearing in examinations.”
