All students, teachers should have UID cards

State issues GR making it mandatory for schools to have UID cards for teachers and students; decision taken after student census reveals govt is spending crores on non-existing students

Five months after Education Minister Rajendra Darda said Unique Identification Cards or UID cards would be made mandatory for teachers and students in schools across the state, a Government Resolution (GR) was issued on September 27 for the same.

Representation pic

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The decision was taken after MiD DAY reported that a student census exercise undertaken by the state education department officials in the city in April revealed that 30 schools failed to produce even 50 per cent of the total students on their premises. Over 1.2 lakh ghost students were found in the census in city schools.

As per the GR, it is mandatory for all the schools to have UID cards by 2013.

Keeping in mind the loss it was suffering, the state in the GR stated that grants would not be given to schools for the year 2013-14 if they failed to have UID cards for their respective teachers and students.

There are about one lakh schools in the state of which 32,573 schools are private.

Of the 32,573 private schools, 20,455 are aided and the remaining 12,018 are unaided.

“It is good that the government has asked schools to make UID cards for their students and teachers. This scheme will help the state curb malpractices and prevent undeserving schools from claiming grants,” said N B Chauhan, deputy director of School Education.

Jayant Jain of Forum For Fairness in Education seconded Chauhan’s opinion.

“It is good that the state is making UID cards mandatory for schools. This will help it keep tab on ghost students. But, aren’t ration cards or graduation certificates forged? Will the government be able to prevent people from forging UID cards? To do so, the state will have to implement a mechanism that will prevent misuse of UID cards,” said Jain.

Rs 1,263 cr
Amount the state was spending on ghost students each year

1.2 lakh
The number of ghost students in the city alone

1 lakh
Number of schools in the state

1.8 crore
Number of students in schoolsu00a0

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