February 19, 2008

Pupil database causes problems

Government plans to create a database of all school pupils is under attack due the poor security record where it comes to data storage that has been displayed over the past few months. The plan is to create a lifelong database where from the age of fourteen a pupil’s education history and personal details will be held on one database.

Every pupil will be given their own personal number which will stay with them for life; this will then be used by potential employers to check job applicant’s educational background and their exam results.

But naturally the words database and security do not seem to go hand in hand recently, this is why there have been fears that this type of system could be open to abuse and should an ID card come out would this be another piece of information adding to the card?

The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) insisted it was not a “tracking system” and would only use existing information that had already been collected “several times over”.

David Russell, national director of resources at the LSC, said: “It will only hold factual information such as name, surname, age, postcode, qualifications achieved and courses attended.”

Source [BBC News]