Aadhaar, SSC exam link rakes up a row

The department issued a circular on November 26 asking the SSC Board not to accept registration of students for the SSC exams unless the schools, government or private, submit Aadhaar details of all their students from Classes I to X.

The deadline for students to pay the SSC exam fee without late fee is December 16, and schools have to submit the list of students to the SSC Board by December 24.

School education director G. Kishan said the Aadhaar numbers were being collected to link with students' admission registration number to facilitate tracking of the child from Class I till Class X. "This initiative is not to trouble the schools or the students. This is being done to ensure the effective implementation of the Right to Education Act. Linking of Aadhaar cards with the students' database will help government verify how many students are on rolls and how many are dropping out every year," he said.

However, the managements of private schools are against linking Aadhaar with SSC exams. "The Aadhaar data collection is not just about SSC students. They want the data of all students from Class I to X. If any school fails to furnish the data of some of students in some classes, the SSC registrations of that school are not being accepted," said N.Sreenivas Reddy, president, Telangana Recognised Schools Managements' Association.