Every child and every school needs a unique student ID number

Every child and every school needs a unique student ID number


Guaranteeing that each school and student is uniquely identified within an education management information system is key to the effective and efficient use of information. It allows students to be followed in school registers, examination records and national scholarship databases throughout their education journey for administrative routine follow-up and for analytical insights into their learning trajectories. It also has benefits beyond education – for example, student identification can be linked to civil registry official digital identification, which can then link to other social services. 

School identification is universal (e.g. 93% of countries outside Western Europe and North America have school identification numbers in secondary education), although coverage is somewhat more limited for early childhood education and for technical and vocational education centres (72% of countries each).

But the 2023 GEM Report reported UIS data showing that only 54% of countries – and as few as 22% of sub-Saharan African countries – have put in place unique student identification mechanisms, although 34% of countries – and 53% of sub-Saharan African countries – had plans or were in the process of introducing student identification numbers in the future.

The accompanying regional report for Southeast Asia released alongside the global 2023 GEM Report looked at the different ways this is being rolled out in the region. In Cambodia in 2020, a student tracking system was piloted in Pouk district, Siem Reap province, with the support of UNESCO, for instance. The Philippines also introduced unique student identification and a process of third-party verification, which has reduced data manipulation and misreporting. Each student, including those enrolled in the Alternative Learning System, is provided with a 12-digit identifier that tracks information throughout the education system. Based on the aggregated data, the system generates reports for teachers and the Department of Education.

Viet Nam meanwhile integrated student identification into the national education management information system in 2017. All students are assigned an identification code that enables their learning progress to be monitored throughout the school year.

The Southeast Asia report found that student identifiers can also be issued and managed outside the Ministry of Education and be associated with a national identification system. In Malaysia, the National Registration Department’s MyIdentity system was integrated with the Student Information System that tracks school attendance electronically. In Singapore, the national identification is also used as a student identifier.

In Africa, school ID numbers are often not unique.  

In Africa, meanwhile, the global 2023 report showed that, even though several countries claim to have school identification numbers, they are often not unique and can vary between databases, such as between examination result records and the school census, compromising links and preventing optimal use.

With support from UNICEF, education ministries in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Zambia devised an interim solution to match their school records. A text similarity algorithm matched schools between databases using the degree of likeness between text associated with each school, such as its name or location. The process allowed 86% of schools in Côte d’Ivoire and at least 87% of schools in Zambia to be identified, helping analyse their performance between 2015 and 2020.

In South Africa, the Learner Unit Record Tracking System has been in place since 2010 and covers all public schools. All learners are uniquely identified with a number, and their individual data are recorded until grade 12, including when they move between schools and provinces. Since its introduction, the system has permitted more advanced and robust analyses of repetition and dropout patterns, learner trajectories and teacher demand and supply. However, the system still appears to sometimes assign a second identification number to students who transfer to a new school.

In Ethiopia, the implementation of a digital identification system for five million secondary school students is based on blockchain technology. The system is a pilot for Ethiopia to build a national digital identification system. It uses Cardano, a public blockchain platform, as the foundation, but the platform is vulnerable to major risks, from network failures to privacy breaches.

For other countries, student identification is relatively recent.  

Albania, for example, is developing Socrates, an education management information system that will introduce unique identifiers through which students will be monitored from their entry into the formal school system until the end of upper secondary. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the West Herzegovina Canton is developing a new system to support planning in which student and teacher identification numbers will be introduced and linked to their respective administrative identification numbers. Serbia’s 2017 Act on the Foundations of the Education System envisaged the same action. 

Student identification systems should be developed carefully to avoid exclusion.  

Digital national identification systems are key for accelerating progress to universal legal identification by 2030: currently, it is estimated that 850 million, mostly marginalized, people do not have legal proof of identification. Access to education, healthcare or social welfare may be conditional on having national identification. Yet digital identification processes have been shown to exclude populations from access to such services.

In India, the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that its national digital identity card, could not be made mandatory: not only should alternative means of identity verification be made available but children should be exempt. However, the ID card continues to be routinely demanded from children for enrolling in anganwadis and schools.

Refugee populations can be made vulnerable because of digital identification. In Kenya, members of the Somali minority have faced vetting and delays while applying for identification.  The UNCHR has also shared biometric, personal information data of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh with the Bangladeshi government, which were then shared with the Myanmar government. To protect marginalized communities, the collection of biometric and other personal data needs to be accompanied by informed consent on their use.

The example of student identification systems shows how technology can improve education system management. It provides the possibility of expanding the range of data collected on schools and students and linking them to generate fine-grained analyses of learning trajectories and the factors that determine them. Such data can be used to personalize learning, track marginalized children and prevent disengagement and early school leaving. 

However, with that potential comes challenges, which are further covered in the 2023 GEM Report. Some question whether the amount of data generated can be used effectively, not just to monitor but to improve individual and institutional performance. Policymakers and school leaders are overwhelmed with the amount of information and with the range of purported solutions to combine data, which often do not speak to each other. The rollout of many technology projects is fraught with high costs, privacy and security concerns, implementation challenges and weak capacity. Understanding all aspects of a digital ecosystem is critical for countries that want to leverage technology to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their education system management. Users need to be put at the centre, improving their attitudes towards the technology they are expected to adopt, and strengthening their capacity to use it.



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