New Delhi: In a significant move aimed at bringing transparency in the school affiliation process, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has clipped the wings of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and empowered states to affiliate private schools.
According to Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, the government has decided to liberalise the CBSE's affiliation-granting regime. As per the changed bye-laws of the CBSE's affiliation process, now states have been empowered to certify a school's infrastructure while the CBSE would inspect only learning outcomes.
"The decision has been taken to do away with duplication in infrastructure inspection by both - the state and Centre. Not only this, now all applications for affiliation of schools to CBSE would now be online so that there would be total transparency and each school would have to have sports activities mandatorily," the minister said while addressing media persons on Thursday.
"Schools affiliated to the CBSE would have to make full fee disclosures, and there should be no hidden costs in their admission. The schools would now also have to permit students to procure the school uniform and shoes from any shop of their choice," Javadekar said.
The sole role of the CBSE in granting affiliation, he said, would be to assess the learning outcomes of schools — the number and training of their teachers up to Class-8 and the academic performance.
"We are bringing transparency to earlier systems. The CBSE has 20,700 schools all over the country. They receive 2000-2500 applications each year to open new schools. The system till now was strange," he said.
"One required a NOC from the state government. All documents were sent there and also checked here. We have now decided that district education officers will authenticate the land, safety and other infrastructure-related matters. The CBSE will not re-check these. The CBSE will undertake a new inspection: that of learning outcomes," Javadekar said.
However, educational experts have raised eyebrows over tweaking CBSE's affiliation bye-laws a few months before next year's Lok Sabha polls.