CBSE Clears 8,000 New Schools for Affiliation

Quality education has become a priority for the Central Board of School Education. Hence, CBSE has made the unprecedented move of granting affiliation to 8000 schools.

What is it?

The Board has decided to grant “affiliated” status to almost all the schools which have applied for the application process. This includes cases dating back to 2007.

What’s the reason behind this?

The latest move comes after the board revised its bye-laws. Now, the entire process for processing applications has been made paperless and the schools have to just submit two documents for approval. Also, the new guidelines state that every application has to be accepted or rejected within a year. Union Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) Prakash Javadekar released the revised bye-laws on Thursday (18 October).

In addition to focusing on the academic record, co-scholastic qualities like focus on sports and teacher training will also be considered for granting affiliation. The bye-laws also provide for instances when schools could be disaffiliated, like indulging in exam malpractices.

In order to make the fee structure at schools transparent, they will now be required to fully disclose all financial details to the guardians of students and no hidden charges will be allowed to pass off as fees.

Importance of the new system

The Minister also stressed the importance of eliminating duplication of work, “For issuing recognition under the RTI Act and NOC (No Objection Certificate), the state education administration verifies various certificates to be obtained from local bodies, revenue department, cooperative department. The CBSE re-verifies them after applications are received. This is a very long drawn process.”

“Therefore, to prevent this duplication, schools will now be required to submit only two documents at the time of applying for affiliation, instead of 12-14 documents earlier”, he added.

Source: Swarajya