The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has now made it mandatory for students to submit their APAAR IDs while registering for the board exams. The decision was ratified during the board’s governing body meeting in June.
APAAR stands for Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry. It was envisioned under the New Education Policy, 2020.
Simply put, it is an identification number which is linked to enrollment, and a student’s journey from pre-primary to higher education can be tracked through it.
Report cards and results can be linked to it and accessed on Digilocker.
The APAAR ID will be unique and remain the same through one’s education journey.
The government has also argued that it will put an end to fake education certificates, with students’ APAAR IDs working as an authentication link.
The proposal to link APAAR ID to board exam registration was part of the CBSE’s Governing Body meeting in June.
So far, the board required schools to send a list of candidates who will appear for the Class 10 and 12 board exams, alongside the registration details of students when they are in Classes 9 and 11.
The minutes of the meeting note that there is no mechanism to link these details to any “standardised identity system, leading to inconsistencies and lack of verifiability across databases”.
“The Ministry of Education has now mandated the adoption of APAAR IDs for all school students as part of the Digital Public Infrastructure for Education. This initiative aims to provide every student with a lifelong, universally accessible digital academic record, thereby streamlining data management and enhancing transparency in the education system,” read the minutes.
After discussion, the Board decided that linkinage of student registration with APAAR ID will start in time for the 2026 board exams.
“The Committee members unanimously agreed on the proposal for linking APAAR ID with registration… and list of candidates. The chairperson… explained that the compulsory attachment of each student’s APAAR ID will improve data accuracy and eliminate duplication,” the minutes said.
Students or their parents will have to provide information such as name, age, date of birth, gender, photograph and Aadhaar numbers. The information will be verified using Aadhaar authentication.In schools across Delhi, consent forms have been distributed over the past two years to get parents on board. Consultations and meetings have also been held with stakeholders.
While registration for the APAAR ID was not meant to be mandatory initially, linking it with board exam registration can be seen as a step towards mandatory uptake.
Parents have raised concerns about misuse of personal information and leaks.
The government, however, has said that the information will not be accessible to anyone except those involved in educational activities or bodies such as the Unified District Information System for Education Plus or the UDISE+ database, scholarships, maintenance academic records, educational institutions and recruitment agencies.
