PEN number for students: what it is and how to find it

What is a PEN number?

A PEN, or Permanent Education Number, is an 11-digit number that the UDISE+ system generates for a student when the school adds them to the portal.¹ It identifies the student, not the school, and stays with them when they move to another school.

It lives in the Student Database Management System (SDMS), the student module of UDISE+. The Ministry of Education began collecting data student by student, rather than as school totals, from the 2022-23 year.²

You may also see it called “Personal Education Number” or “Permanent Enrolment Number”. The UDISE+ guide for schools uses Permanent Education Number, so that is the name to use on forms and notices.

PEN, APAAR ID, UDISE code and Aadhaar: what’s the difference?

Four numbers turn up on the same forms, and they are easy to mix up. Two belong to the student, one to the school, and one to the person.

The link that matters is between the first two. The APAAR portal says the UDISE system “generates APAAR ID against PEN ID of student”, and that the “PEN of student is mandatory for generation of APAAR ID”.⁴ No PEN means no APAAR ID.

The APAAR ID is “a unique and permanent 12-digit ID”⁵ that is pushed into the student’s DigiLocker account once it is made.

How does a school generate a PEN?

A school never types in or makes up a PEN for a new student. It adds the student to SDMS, and the system generates the number.¹ Here is how that works with the school login.

1. Log in to the SDMS portal with the school’s login and select the Current Academic Year.
2. Check whether the student is already in the system. A child who studied in another school on UDISE+ already has a PEN; bring them in with Import, not Add Student.
3. Open Add Student. Schools can add students from pre-primary to class 1 only. For a new student in a higher class, the manual asks you to contact your MIS user.³
4. Fill in the details: whether Aadhaar is available, the name as in school records, gender, date of birth, mother’s, father’s and guardian’s names, Aadhaar number, name as on Aadhaar, and admission date.
5. Click Validate AADHAAR from UIDAI. If you later change the name, date of birth, gender or Aadhaar details, validate again.
6. Complete the student’s General, Enrolment and Facility profiles.

At the end of each year, the Progression Activity moves students to the next academic year. If a student was progressed wrongly, use the Correction button.¹

How do you find a student’s PEN?

The only official ways to look up a PEN are inside the school and department logins. What you can do depends on which side of the counter you are on.

For the school office

• Global Student Search finds a student by PEN, name, Aadhaar, date of birth, or father’s or mother’s name, narrowed by state, district, block and school.
• Get PEN & DOB, on the Import screen, finds a student’s PEN and date of birth from their Aadhaar number and year of birth.
• Track Student shows a student’s record when you already have the PEN.

All three are in the UDISE+ guides for school users.¹³

For parents

Ask the school office. If your child has just moved, the last school can help too.

We found no official public search where a parent can type a name or an Aadhaar number and get a PEN. Be careful with websites that ask for your child’s Aadhaar to “find the PEN”: they are not the UDISE+ portal.

If your child already has an APAAR ID, it is in their DigiLocker account. That is the APAAR ID, not the PEN, so don’t give it to the school as the PEN.

What happens to the PEN when a student changes school?

The PEN stays the same. The new school brings the student in by their existing PEN and date of birth, so the record follows the child. The two schools each have one job to do.¹

The old school releases the student through the Transfer Certificate Module / Mark Dropout. This removes the student from its records and moves them to the dropbox, where a profile waits, not linked to any school.

The new school then follows these steps:

1. Open Import and choose Within State or Outside State.
2. Search by the student’s PEN and date of birth.
3. Enter the admission date, class and section, and save.

If the old school hasn’t released the student, the new school can send a Student Release Request. This only works while the student is still active at the old school, which can approve or reject it. If a request within the same state is rejected, the new school can use Escalate to Destination Admin, but only once.

How do you correct a mistake in a student’s record?

Some fields the school can fix on its own; others need the block, district or state admin. The rules from the UDISE+ guide for schools:¹

Because a name can be changed only once, check it against the Aadhaar card before you save, not after.

Is a PEN mandatory?

We found no official rule that makes the PEN itself compulsory for admission. In practice it matters anyway, because the APAAR ID can’t be made without it, and boards are starting to ask for the APAAR ID.

In its registration circular for 2025-26, CBSE made the APAAR ID mandatory for every student registered for classes 9 and 11.⁶ For that year, schools could enter “REFUSED” where parents did not consent, keeping a copy of the refusal, or “NOGEN” where the ID could not be made for other reasons. For 2026-27, CBSE asked schools to correct student details in Aadhaar, UDISE+ and school records, so that every student has an APAAR ID when the list of candidates is submitted.

State boards set their own rules, so check your board’s latest circular.

A correct PEN today is a working APAAR ID at board registration. Why the details matter

Keeping PENs in Scoolin

Scoolin does not log in to UDISE+ for you; the PEN and APAAR ID come from the portal. What Scoolin does is keep them beside each student, and show you who is missing one before a deadline.

• Each student’s profile has a place for the PEN, the APAAR ID and Aadhaar.
• A PEN must be exactly 11 digits and an APAAR ID 12, and Aadhaar’s check digit is tested, so a typo is caught when it is typed.
• Aadhaar shows only its last four digits on the profile.
• Filter the student list for a missing PEN or APAAR ID to see who still needs one.
• A “Name differs from Aadhaar” filter finds students whose school name and Aadhaar name don’t match, ignoring case, dots and extra spaces.
• Mark when parents have refused APAAR consent, so the “REFUSED” cases are ready for the board.
• Print class lists with PEN and APAAR ID columns.

See how it fits with the rest of the student information system.

Common questions