What is Ontario Educational Number?
The OEN is a student identification number provided to primary and secondary students across the province by the Ministry of Education. The number will be used as a key identifier on a student’s school records and will follow the student throughout the student’s primary and secondary education.
The OEN is nine numbers (eight digits + a check digit), gets assigned at random, and gets usually linked to reliable information about the student (name, gender, date of birth). The OEN number of a student can be seen on their report card.
The OEN will make it easier to preserve accurate records of individual students’ travel and progress through elementary and secondary school while also safeguarding their privacy. It will also make it much easier to collect and analyze accurate and timely data about education in Ontario.
In reality, providing an OEN to kids across Ontario is the first step in developing a new data collection and management system that will benefit everyone in Ontario who cares about education.
Why do students need to have a number?
A consistent, centrally allocated student number is the best approach to identify individual students in a diversified education system like Ontario’s. It also aids in the protection of individual pupils’ identities. The majority of Canadian provinces already give students a unique identification number.
How will the OEN be used?
The following is how the OEN will get used:
- It will get recorded in the student’s Ontario Student Record (OSR) folder and associated forms.
- On student achievement assessments, tests, and evaluations
Why government needs information on students?
Data on student attendance, achievement, course selection, and special needs will collected by schools and school boards. The OEN and the new information-management system will aid in the generation of more accurate, trustworthy, and complete statistics, allowing for a better assessment of needs and the development of policies to address them. Improved data quality will result in better reporting to Ontario taxpayers on the province’s educational system.
Can parents and students have access to the OEN number?
Yes. The government rules controlling access, and personal data disclosure, and privacy protection would stay unaffected.
Will the information be protected?
Yes. The OEN system has security built-in. Because the number gets assigned at random, it cannot used in deducing personal information about the student.
Furthermore, the “check digit” included in the number will confirm it is a genuine OEN. Access to the OEN system’s data will get strictly controlled, and the ministry will keep a database holding personal information in a secure environment protected by cutting-edge technology.
Will the school benefit from it?
Schools, boards, other educational partners, and numerous specialists have only been consulted extensively and are active participants in the new system’s design. The system will be simple to use once it gets developed, and it will lessen the administrative responsibilities associated with data collecting and reporting. Officials in charge of information management in their schools and boards support the new system’s implementation and have contributed significantly to its development.