The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development on Thursday announced several changes to the affiliation by-laws for schools under the Central Board of Secondary Education.
“The new by-laws denote a major shift from the highly complex procedure followed earlier to a simplified system based on preventing duplication of processes,” said HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar.
Schools will now have to submit only two documents while applying for affiliation. One document validating the building’s safety, sanitation and land ownership must be vetted by the head of the district education department and the other is an affidavit from the school confirming that it adheres to the CBSE’s fee and infrastructure norms.
“As a result of this major change, the Board shall not revisit any of the aspects vetted by the state during inspection, and the delay due to scrutiny and non-compliance of deficiencies in these documents shall be drastically curtailed,” said the ministry. Earlier, schools had to submit around 12 to 14 documents and the CBSE would re-check the ones vetted by the local administration.
The entire process will be online. Besides, the ministry has decided to fast-track the process and decide on the affiliation the same year a school applies for it. The board has 20,299 schools in India, according to the Hindustan Times. Of these, there are 1,123 Kendriya Vidyalayas, while most CBSE schools outside Delhi are private ones.
This year, the CBSE has cleared around 8,000 applications that were pending since 2007, said Javadekar. These included applications for new affiliation, renewal and upgrades.
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