Explained | APAAR student ID & ABC

The Ministry of Education launched Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) registration through Common Service Centres (CSCs) in remote villages of the country. 

What is APAAR?

• Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) is a specialised identification system designed for all students in India. 

• This initiative is part of the ‘One Nation, One Student ID’ programme launched by the Union government, aligning with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

• Every student in India is required to register for APAAR ID — a unique 12-digit code to digitally store, manage, and access all their academic credits, including degrees, diplomas, certificates, training details, and co-curricular accomplishments. 

• This ID functions as a digital identity for the student in the realm of education.

• APAAR ID is used for storing credits earned by students in the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC).

• According to the new rule, it is necessary to have an APAAR ID to gain admission to any college or university.

• All school students would be given provisional APAAR ID immediately and it should be authenticated with Aadhaar and linked to DigiLocker. 

• APAAR along with Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) creates a wholesome ecosystem for recognising efforts through credits, providing seamless mobility across domains and opening up multiple pathways for future progression of students to not limit their potentialities.

What is the Academic Bank of Credit?

• Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) is envisaged as a digital bank that holds the credit earned by a student in any course. 

• It is a national-level digital facility for promoting academic mobility through a formal system of credit accumulation, credit transfer and credit redemption.

• In this digital credit bank, all the credits — marks scored by the students — and all their personal information will be available.

• With this, it will be easy for students to take admission from one institute to another for graduation and post-graduation. 

• It is a mechanism to facilitate the students to choose their learning path to attain a degree/diploma/post-graduation, etc, working on the principle of multiple entry-multiple exits as well as anytime, anywhere, and at any level learning. 

• ABC shall provide significant autonomy to the students by providing extensive choice of courses for a programme of study, and flexibility in curriculum.

• Universities will now be able to access all the data of students with one click with the ID.

• It is a storehouse of credits earned by an individual student throughout his or her learning. 

• It contains complete information about all the studies done by the student in any institution, his/her performance and mainly the credits obtained by the student. 

• ABC is not a degree-awarding organisation. The statutory degree-awarding power shall continue to be vested with the eligible higher education institutions which have registered with ABC.