Smart Merit: A Web-Based System for Identifying Meritorious Students in Primary Education

The Indian primary education system faces significant challenges in ensuring that students with exceptional academic or extracurricular potential are identified and supported at an early stage. Traditional merit recognition practices suffer from inconsistencies across regions, manual errors, and limited accessibility, particularly in rural and under-resourced schools. To address these issues, this paper proposes Smart Merit, a secure, scalable, and web-based system designed to automate and standardize the process of identifying meritorious students in primary education. The platform integrates authenticated digital identity using Aadhar [1], employs a dynamic merit scoring algorithm that balances academic performance, extracurricular achievements, and socio-economic background [2], and offers real-time analytics and reporting features for educators and administrators. Data privacy and system security are ensured through the use of AES-256 encryption and SSL-based transmission protocols. The system architecture follows a modular design, allowing for customization by district or state education departments depending on regional policies and educational objectives.[3][4][5].