Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education and its National ID Program have announced the launch of a Digital ID system for students in the country.
In a statement, the organizations explained that the student ID “serves as a robust identity verification across all academic platforms, thereby reducing redundancy and fosters coherence among students’ academic profiles.” They noted that the student ID’s launch comes after “successful pilot projects”.
That may be a reference, at least in part, to a collaboration with Input Output HK (IOHK), the company behind the Cardano cryptocurrency, last year, in which authorities sought to test out the use of student IDs based on blockchain ledger technology. It isn’t clear, however, whether IOHK or blockchain technology of any kind is playing a role in the new, wide rollout of digital student ID.
In any case, the government agencies noted in their announcement that the biometric data of over 640,000 students had been migrated to the National ID Program’s Fayda database.
“Fayda” refers to the country’s emerging digital ID project. Developed in collaboration with the World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) program, the project is comprehensive in scope, with authorities aiming to collect the biographic data and biometrics including face, fingerprint, and iris scans of Ethiopian citizens and residents. TECH5, a biometrics specialist based in Geneva, is a key technology partner in the project.
The Ministry of Education and National ID Program said that integration students’ data into Fayda would help to improve operational efficiency for educational institutions with respect to matters like examinations and records management, adding that they “are hopeful about the transformative capabilities of this endeavor”.
Source: Ethiopian Monitor
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September 14, 2023 – by Alex Perala
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