CISCE Violates Right to Education Act, 2009

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) is a private national-level board of school education in India. It holds the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education and the Indian School Certificate examinations for Class X and Class XII respectively.

 The Board was established in the year 1958. Lately, the board has been under fire due to non-compliance with the Right to Education Act, 2009. The CISCE has followed curriculum other than that which the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had prescribed for classes 1 to 8. In furtherance of the same, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has called for an explanation from the schools of different boards for the violation of Section 29 of the RTE Act. These boards had adopted curriculum that was not in consonance with the curriculum prescribed by CBSE. Also, the evaluation procedures and the books prescribed by these boards were not as per guidelines issued by the NCERT. In their response the CISCE informed that in order to draft the curricula for pre-school to class VIII they had constituted a body of experts. The body consisted of a personnel from the NCERT. Resultantly, the NCPCR has questioned NCERT for their negligence and for allowing CISCE design syllabi different from that of NCERT. Section 29 of the RTE Act states that the curriculum and the evaluation procedure for the elementary education shall be prepared by an academic authority. This authority shall be one that will be specified by the appropriate government by way of notification. This authority in India is the NCERT. By developing this kind of syllabus, the CISCE has violated the Right to education norm. One of the NCPCR official stated that it is absolutely strange that why would an NCERT official help the CISCE board to develop syllabus that is not in conformity with the NCERT syllabi. There are over 2900 schools with nearly 10 lakh children that are affiliated with the CISCE. The CISCE holds the ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) board exams every year. Nearly 2 lac children appear in these exams. In the notice that the NCPCR has issued to the NCERT, it has stated that the act of drafting syllabi in violation of the NCERT is clearly against the spirit of Section 29 of the RTE Act. NCERT has to provide its reply for this notice in the next 10 days. NCPCR officials have stated that they would discuss the matter with the HRD Ministry and direct the CISCE to develop the syllabi as per NCERT till class VIII.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2019/jan/22/cisce-in-trouble-for-not-following-ncert-syllabi-1928417.html