Parents refuse to share Aadhaar, bank details on education portal

GURGAON: The Gurgaon district administration has asked all private schools to upload and update students’ records on the Management Information System (MIS), the official education portal of the Haryana government, following the direction of the state education board.

Parents, however, feel that details like Aadhaar number and bank and income details asked by the schools are intrusive and do not serve any purpose.

Last year, the Haryana government directed all schools in the state to ensure student records are updated on MIS before the start of the academic year on April 1. Most schools, however, failed to do so.

This year again, schools are seeking the details from the parents. Gurgaon deputy commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh asked parents to support the exercise, saying that the data collection exercise is being done through- out the state so that necessary policy decisions can be taken.

“The details are important as financial status is important in determining policy parameters. All information will be kept confidential”, said Singh.

Parents said they are not comfortable in sharing their financial details as they believe it has nothing to do with the school or the authorities, as long as they are paying the fees on time.

“My son is a student of Class 5 and we have received an email from the school with the directive of the Haryana education board, asking us to fill a Google form details about our children and parents,” said Amar Preet, a parent.

“Some of the information asked can be given without much concern but most parents are uncomfortable to share sensitive information like bank details and annual income,” Amar Preet said.

“We pay our school fees through our bank accounts via cheque or electronically. None of the parents are asking for any government subsidies from the school or the government,” said Preet.

The parents further alleged that schools in Delhi have not sent any such request to parents.

Tripti Singh Rathore, administrator of the group Gurgaon Parents for Better Education on a social media website, said she is getting queries from parents. “We all are very concerned and unable to understand why schools are asking for these details. This includes personal information,” said Rathore.

“I understand that the government wants to aggressively bring India under one uniform ID. Are so many details of a school going kid needed? Would it lead to profiling? And a religion column in 2018?” asked Anupama Jain, administrator of another group, Senior School Moms.

Parents said while the Supreme Court is yet to give its verdict on Aadhaar being compulsory, the Haryana govern- ment has been actively pushing to force everyone to adopt Aadhaar.

On January 16, the Haryana education department had warned private schools that are yet to upload the information on the U-DISE (Unified District Information System for Education) to do it before January 22. If they don’t meet the deadline, a final notice will be issued to the schools giving them another week’s time, before the department starts cancelling their no-objection certificates.

U-DISE is a 10-digit number given to the school, which is used as a username on the central government’s portal where the information will be uploaded.

According to the Haryana education department, 1,004 schools in the state are yet to upload their data while 141 schools that have registered do not have a single entry on U-DISE.

There are 43 schools from Gurgaon that are yet to register on U-DISE.