CBSE affiliation made easy: States to keep tab

Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday released the new bye-laws to make it easy for the schools' affiliation with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

The bye-laws also envisage full fee disclosure and no hidden charges in the garb of fees and authority to the state governments to regulate the fee structure and its revision to free the CBSE from this responsibility.

They also make a 2-day training every year mandatory for the teachers, including principals and vice-principals, to imbibe academic excellence.

Instead of the CBSE undertake verification of various certificates, it would bank on the report of the district education officer, validating the aspects such as building safety, sanitation, ownership, etc. that he has to otherwise also undertake for issuing recognition to a school under the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

Javadekar said the new bye-laws eliminate the delay in the CBSE's scrutiny and check on removal of all deficiencies. Instead of submitting 12 to 14 documents while seeking affiliation, the schools will have to submit just two – the certificate of the district education officer and a self-affidavit on adherence to fee, infrastructure norms, etc.

These are the third set of the bye-laws for CBSE affiliation. The first two were issued in 1988 and 2012. The entire process will be online as the CBSE had gone paperless since March and so applications shall be disposed off in the same year, Javadekar told a Press conference here.

He said the school inspection will be done as soon as applications are received and a letter of intent will be issued to the school on satisfactory inspection report.

The school has to then fulfill the conditions like recruitment of qualified teachers, special educator, wellness counsellor and salaries through digital payment and submit an online commencement certificate latest by March 31 in the given year.

Javadekar said the CBSE will confirm affiliation on getting this certificate from the school to let it start the new academic session under CBSE.