Bengal Education department starts integration of Permanent Education Number

Kolkata: The state School Education department has started integration of Permanent Education Number (PEN) in the Banglar Shiksha portal for streamlining and simplifying the process of the students’ transition from one school to the other.

PEN is a unique identification number assigned to every student provided by the Union Ministry of Education, through the UDISE+ (Unified District Information System for Education Plus) portal that covers more than 14.89 lakh schools, 95 lakh teachers and 26.5 crore children.

It is a unique 12 digit code used to digitally store, manage and access all academic credits, degrees, diplomas, certificates, training details and co curricular certificates of students.

“It has been found in many instances that when students changed their schools especially in pre primary, primary and upper primary level, their transition to the new school was delayed with the heads of institutions insisting on documents like record sheet, transfer certificate, caste, birth and other certificates.

The parents faced hardships in submission of such documents resulting in inordinate delay in the migration process. Sometimes, there have been cases when children even dropped out of school in the process.

The PEN will streamline the process,” an official in the state Education department said.

The department has plans to set up a dedicated team to oversee this process.

According to a senior official of the department, when a student used to migrate to another state for higher education, he could not be identified through the Banglar Shiksha portal.

With the integration of PEN in the portal it will be easy to locate the student.