What do UDISE+, APAAR, HPC, DPDP and other school-office terms mean?
This glossary defines the Indian school, coaching, tax and data-protection terms that school owners meet every year, such as UDISE+, APAAR, PEN, HPC, DLT, DPDP, RTE 25%, LOC, UTR, GSTIN, SAC and TC, in plain language.
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- APAAR - Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry
- A 12-digit lifelong student ID created through UDISE+ with parental consent. A Supreme Court direction of 20 Jul 2026 is reported to require an opt-out and to limit sharing with private parties, so check current rules before storing it. Source: APAAR (Ministry of Education)
- Break-glass
- An emergency access process: platform staff may look at an institute’s data only with a stated reason, for a limited time, with every action logged and the institute notified.
- CBSE - Central Board of Secondary Education
- A national school board. CBSE affiliation bye-laws cover areas such as CCTV, public disclosure and attendance, and the board publishes circulars that schools must follow. Source: CBSE
- CBT - Computer-Based Test
- An exam taken on a computer or phone. Coaching centres use CBT for test series, and some national entrance exams are moving to CBT.
- CCE - Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation
- A school-based approach that combines regular assessments of academic and co-scholastic areas with periodic exams. Boards have changed their schemes over time, so follow the scheme your board currently prescribes.
- CERT-In - Indian Computer Emergency Response Team
- India’s national cyber-security agency. Its Directions of 28 Apr 2022 require companies to report listed incidents within 6 hours and keep ICT logs in India for 180 days. Source: CERT-In
- Data fiduciary
- Under DPDP, the person or institute that decides why and how personal data is processed. A school or coaching centre is the data fiduciary for its students, parents and staff.
- Data processor
- A service that processes personal data on behalf of a data fiduciary and only on its instructions. Acavya is a data processor for its institutes.
- DLT - Distributed Ledger Technology registration (TRAI)
- The TRAI-mandated registration through which a sender registers its entity, SMS headers and message templates before sending bulk SMS in India. Since 1 Oct 2024 links, APKs and call-back numbers in messages must also be whitelisted. Source: TRAI
- DPA - Data Processing Agreement
- The contract between an institute and its software vendor that says how personal data is processed, which sub-processors are used, how breaches are reported and what happens to the data at the end.
- DPDP - Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and Rules, 2025
- India’s data-protection law. Most obligations, including verifiable parental consent for under-18s, start on 13 May 2027. See DPDP readiness. Source: MeitY
- GSTIN - Goods and Services Tax Identification Number
- The 15-character number of a GST-registered business. A B2B tax invoice carries the buyer’s GSTIN so the buyer can claim input tax credit where eligible. Source: GST portal
- HPC - Holistic Progress Card
- A multi-source report card designed under PARAKH that describes a child’s skills and competencies by stage, not only marks. It is not uniformly mandated by CBSE, and sources differ on level names, so templates should follow the official formats. Source: CBSE
- Kruti Dev
- A legacy Hindi font in which Hindi text is stored as Latin characters. Old registers and spreadsheets often use it, and it must be converted to Unicode before import.
- LOC - List of Candidates
- The list a CBSE school submits to register students for board exams. Names, dates of birth and subjects must match school records, so validation before submission avoids corrections. Source: CBSE
- Maker-checker
- A control where one person prepares a sensitive change (a discount, a receipt cancellation, a marks edit) and a second person approves it. Both actions are recorded in the audit log.
- OMR - Optical Mark Recognition
- Reading filled bubbles on an answer sheet automatically. Modern tools can read OMR sheets from a phone camera instead of a dedicated scanner.
- PEN - Permanent Education Number
- An 11-digit number that UDISE+ creates automatically for each student record. Source: UDISE+ portal
- POCSO - Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012
- The law that makes reporting of child sexual abuse mandatory and requires child-protection policies and background checks for staff who work with children. Incident records must be handled confidentially.
- PTM - Parent-Teacher Meeting
- A scheduled meeting where a parent speaks to the class teacher or subject teachers, in person or by video.
- PWA - Progressive Web App
- A website that can be installed on a phone or PC and keep working offline. Acavya runs as a PWA on phones and office PCs, alongside its Android app.
- RTE 25% - Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, section 12(1)(c)
- Private unaided schools must reserve 25% of entry-class seats for children from economically weaker and disadvantaged groups. The state reimburses fees, and capitation fees and screening tests are barred. Admission is usually by an online lottery run by the state. Source: Department of School Education and Literacy
- Rule pack
- A versioned set of rules, such as a state’s coaching rules or GST treatment of fee heads, stored with its source links and the date it was verified. Acavya shows a rule pack as unverified until it has been checked.
- SAC - Services Accounting Code
- The classification code for a service on a GST invoice (HSN is the equivalent for goods). Each fee head can carry its own SAC and a taxable or exempt flag. Source: GST portal
- TC - Transfer Certificate
- The certificate a school issues when a student leaves. Some states do not allow a school to withhold a TC for unpaid dues, so Acavya can show dues without blocking the TC where that rule applies.
- Tele-MANAS - National Tele Mental Health Programme, helpline 14416
- A government mental-health helpline. A Supreme Court judgment of 25 Jul 2025 asks educational institutions, including coaching centres, to display it with other helplines. Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
- UDISE+ - Unified District Information System for Education Plus
- The Ministry of Education’s national school-data system. Each school submits an annual school profile and student and teacher data through its own UDISE+ login. There is no public API for private software, so ERPs prepare the exact data and you upload it. Source: UDISE+ portal
- UPI AutoPay - UPI e-mandate for recurring payments
- A standing instruction that lets a parent pay instalments automatically. Under RBI rules the parent gets a pre-debit notice, and recurring debits up to ₹15,000 do not need extra authentication. Limits change, so verify the current rule. Source: RBI
- UTR - Unique Transaction Reference
- The reference number of a bank or UPI transfer. Matching the UTR against the bank statement is the most reliable way to confirm that a fee payment really arrived.
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