Up to June 2023, up to 130 pilot schools with around 65,000 students can take part in the pilot project.
After the driver’s license, the student ID card should also be digital by 2024. The so-called edu.digicard should not only serve as ID. You should also be able to borrow books from the school library, for example, and cooperation with transport associations is also being considered. On Friday, Minister of Education Martin Polaschek and Secretary of State for Digitization Florian Tursky (both ÖVP) presented the pilot test for the digital student ID card in a Viennese school.
Up to June 2023, up to 130 pilot schools with around 65,000 students can take part in the pilot project. In order to use the edu.digicard voluntarily, they must register with their mobile phone signature or ID Austria and an ID card in the mobile app of the same name.
Minister of Education Polaschek called the digital student ID the “next milestone in the digitization of our school system”. After equipping the students with inexpensive laptops and tablets and introducing the new compulsory subject “digital basic education” from the 5th grade onwards, the school administration should not only become faster step by step through digitization, but also become leaner by also questioning bureaucratic processes .
More than 90 percent have a smartphone
According to Tursky, more than 90 percent of all young people have a smartphone and would also use it as a driving license. So it makes sense to also offer the student ID card digitally. As before, it can be used as proof of age, for free travel for schoolchildren or to receive discounts.
The digital student ID card is also a logical step for federal school spokeswoman Flora Schmudermayer from the ÖVP-affiliated student union. Young people are already paying digitally and saving their driver’s license on their cell phones, and unlike the current plastic card, the app also means that forgetting and losing your student ID card is no longer an issue. By setting up the edu-digicard together with trained teachers, the students would also get an introduction to e-government.
After the first political phase, the digital student ID should be accessible to all high school students from September, according to Tursky. At the same time, the pilot phase for ten to fourteen-year-olds, who need parental consent to use the app, will start. The pilot test is still being carried out with a separate app. After the evaluation, the digital student ID card is to be transferred to the federal government’s eID app in 2024.
The digital student ID is the second digital ID after the digital driver’s license. Since it was launched a few months ago, it has been downloaded 200,000 times. The digital admission certificate and the digital proof of age and identity are to follow this year, and work on the digital student ID card is also continuing. Austria is “at the forefront” of these technical developments, emphasized Tursky, who also sees Austria “not so badly positioned” when it comes to the digitization of schools.
(WHAT)