Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday announced that the national Capital will have its own board for school education like other states. The formation of the Delhi Board of School Education was approved during a Cabinet meeting.

Kejriwal said that Delhi has 1,000 government schools and nearly 1,700 private schools. “All the government schools and most of the private schools are affiliated to CBSE [Central Board of Secondary Education],” he added.

The Delhi chief minister said that 20 to 25 schools will be brought under the Delhi Board of School Education in the academic year 2021-’22. “We will select the schools after holding discussions with the principals, teachers and the parents of students,” Kejriwal said. “We hope that within four to five years, all schools will voluntarily become part of the Delhi Board of School Education.”

Kejriwal added that the board will have an executive body and a governing body. Education Minister Manish Sisodia will head the governing body. “We will have several education experts and bureaucrats on board,” he said.

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The Delhi chief minister said that the new school board aims to make the students “fiercely patriotic” and self-dependent to serve the society and the country in a selfless manner. He added that the board will equip students with adequate skills so that they gets jobs after completing their education.

Kejriwal noted that transforming education could help solve several problems that the country was facing. He added that Delhi’s education system saw revolutionary changes in the last six years as his government spent nearly 25% of the Budget on it.

In July last year, the Aam Aadmi Party government had set up the Delhi Education Board Committee and Delhi Curriculum Reform Committee to prepare for the constitution of the school education board. Members of the committees had held meeting with Sisodia to discuss the roadmap to create the board.