The Union Education Ministry is set to introduce an 11-digit Unique Identification Number, known as the 'Permanent Education Number' (PEN), beginning this academic year. This initiative aims to uniquely identify every student through the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) portal, as mandated by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The West Bengal School Education Department has announced that the use of PEN will be mandatory starting from the 2024-25 academic year.

The introduction of PEN is expected to significantly streamline the process of transferring students between schools, which is currently fraught with challenges, especially at the pre-primary, primary, and upper-primary levels. At present, schools often require various certificates, including caste and birth records, during student transfers. This requirement can cause delays as parents struggle to procure the necessary documents. To alleviate these issues, the education department plans to form a special team dedicated to facilitating smooth student transfers.

Additionally, West Bengal's education portal, Banglar Shiksha, already employs a system of unique IDs for students enrolled in vocational undergraduate, Anganwadi, and engineering courses. Integrating PEN with the Banglar Shiksha portal would allow schools and teachers in the state to access student information more efficiently.

Currently, tracking students who move outside West Bengal through the Banglar Shiksha portal is difficult. The introduction of PEN will address this problem by enabling easy identification and record access nationwide. Efforts to link PEN with the Banglar Shiksha portal have already begun, promising a more cohesive and accessible educational record-keeping system across India.