CBSE Affiliation Process for Schools Reformed

In this present high tech world, it is crucially important for the education sector to make its entire process absolutely transparent. On the same lines, the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD) has put forward major reforms in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) affiliation process for the new schools and institutions.

The reforms have been recently declared by the Union Minister of HRD, Prakash Javadekar while addressing the media on October 18, 2018 at the PIB Conference Hall, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi. The minister has announced that the entire process has been made online in order to make the entire process transparent. He informed that there are about 20,700 schools that are affiliated through CBSE already and CBSE receives approximately 2000-2500 fresh applications for opening of new schools every year. The new process introduced has brought about major changes to the affiliation process. Earlier the process involved the following steps: Firstly, an NOC inspection was conducted at the state level; secondly, an NOC inspection was conducted at the CBSE level. Presently, this two-step process has been done away with. The new process involves the following steps: (i) An NOC is to be received from the District Education Officer after inspection of the school infrastructure; (ii) An inspection shall be conducted by CBSE for learning outcomes. These steps have been reformed in order to remove the duplication of work involved at the state and the central levels. Javadekar stated that CBSE shall be confined only to checking of academic parameters. The process of applying for CBSE affiliation has now been made online. This has been done to make the process quick and to reduce pendency of applications. About 8000 applications were pending so far and some were pending since the year 2007. About 2000 schools have been granted affiliation recently. The schools are also required to submit undertakings concerning various fronts such as: (i) An undertaking to make sports mandatory for students; (ii) an undertaking for mandatory disclosure of fees; (iii) An undertaking that they shall not charge any hidden fees. All schools shall have to follow these guidelines otherwise they may lose their affiliation. Additionally, the students cannot be forced to buy uniform, books and other school items from a particular shop or store only. He concluded by stating that all possible efforts are being made by the HRD ministry in order to make the entire process more flexible, transparent.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.ndtv.com/education/mhrd-introduces-major-reforms-in-cbse-affiliation-process-for-new-schools-1933902?amp=1&akamai-rum=off