The Magic Word

Finally,theres a way to get a fix on our sprawling and diverse educational system,to the tangible benefit of students and administrators. After signing an agreement with the Unique Identification Authority of India,Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal pointed out how stamping the UID on marksheets and certificates would help sharpen delivery of various schemes,stem the duplication of paperwork,and put a real,verifiable number on school attendance rates. Anyone who has had to contend with school and university bureaucracies for mark-sheets or degrees or to migrate between institutions,would be grateful for a system that calls up all this information with a single number. Instead of different roll numbers to attend class,take an exam,and change institutions,an electronic registry will be home to all your educational information,from the point of elementary school enrolment,through every point where you need credential verification later in life. In this case,the HRD ministry seems to have committed to UID use with care,with proof of concept studies and pilots to monitor the technology and fit it to its ends. It goes to prove how an institution can mould the UID to its own particular needs,and how the scheme can radically improve the way we access public services. There has been much blather about the UID and the insidious erosion of civil liberties,the dark side of the database nation,etc. Technology makes it possible to bundle different kinds of information about you,but the UID need not be an attempt to aggregate all this information. It is merely a tracking number. It is a keyword that will summon up information about you from various nodes like when you want to open a bank account,or find a marksheet,or get a phone connection. The specific information still resides in different locations. On the other hand,having a single number to give to all these various agencies would phenomenally simplify our lives,give everyone an acknowledged existence,and ensure that we are not locked out of our entitlements for lack of a scrap of official paper.