Aadhaar link rule causing hardships during admission

Hyderabad: The linking of student Aadhaar is a mandatory process during the time of admission. However, the parents are facing hardships at the time of shifting their wards from one school to another, as the child Aadhaar details are stored with the Education department which is making it difficult for them to shift their child to a new school.

Vexed up with the issue, the members of Hyderabad Schools Parents Association (HSPA) have requested the Education department to direct the schools to discontinue this process. However, the school managements have been demanding the Education department to withdraw the linking of child details from Mandal Education Office (MEO) and restore the same to school headmasters. As per the current system, a child's information, including Aadhaar details, are stored with the management information system coordinator in MEO.

Information of a child is linked with the student's current school and only after the details are delinked, they can be linked with new schools. The members of HSPA pointed out that as the admissions for new academic year are in full swing, the private schools were insisting parents to provide Aadhaar details of their children at the time of admission and were claiming that they were collecting the Aadhaar details as it was part of child's information sought by the school education department.

They were also claiming that unless details of a student were not filled, the information pertaining to the student would not get uploaded. Similarly, if the Aadhaar details are not delinked from the previous school, till then the details cannot be uploaded. This is causing hardships to parents as the school managements are using this process of linking Aadhaar as a tactic at the time of issuing transfer certificate to the student.

K Venkat Sainath, joint secretary, HSPA said, "Linking of student Aadhaar has become mandatory from 2018.

But, the private schools are violating the norms. Regarding this issue, we have been receiving many calls from parents. We are planning to submit a representation to the Commissioner and Director of the Education department. There is no need to store the details in the MEO portal as this is causing hardships to parents at the time of shifting, as the delinking process is a time-taking process and also the private schools are playing tactics. It will be better if the Education department directs the schools to discontinue this process.

"Due to financial issues, I have decided to shift my child to a new school. But when I approached the school for the transfer certificate, the school management forced us to pay all dues and also did not delink the Aadhaar and due to that, I have to keep my child in the same school," said T Mohan (name changed), whose child is studying in Class 5.

"We are collecting Aadhaar details as per the direction of the Education department. We are aware that delinking process is time-taking. It would be better if the child's data is withdrawn from the MEO and restored to the particular schools so that the data is not misused.

Aadhaar details of a student is very much important as it can be used to prove their local status and can act as a genuineness certificate in future," said Y Shekar Rao, president, Telangana Recognized Schools Management Association.