Deadline over, Aadhaar of 3.8 lakh students not uploaded on education portal

The education department, last year, began the drive to upload Aadhaar cards of all the students studying in government schools on the SARAL portal in an attempt to get an accurate number of students studying in government schools.

Of the total Aadhaar cards registered on the portal, 1,96,94,662 were sent to the Unique Identifi-cation Authority of India for validation and 1,78,20,886 were declared valid. For others which are declared invalid, the schools will have to re-register with corrections or will have to check if there is any mismatch in the details.

Spokesperson for Maharashtra School Principals’ Association, Mahendra Ganpule said, “There is no decision on whether there will be another extension in the deadline. But schools will still have time to complete the task of uploading Aadhaar cards, as the process of Sanch-Manyata — which fixes student-teachers ratio in government schools — will begin with schools having completed the Aadhaar registration on SARAL portal.”

Even after severe opposition to the drive with many contending the Aadhaar mandate by the state for school education, a Government Resolution (GR) issued in January made Aadhaar a mandatory document during school admissions.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Rajya Prathamik Shikshak Samiti, a teachers’ association, has written to the Commissioner of Educ-ation Suraj Mandhare demanding that the process of Sanch-Man-yata, should be only on the basis of student enrollment submitted on the portal by the schools and not Aadhaar registrations.

State president of the association, Vijay Kombe, said, “…the state government already has records of various facilities such as midday meals, uniforms, books provided to students to accurately know the number of students, without the need of Aadhaar registration.”