The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is an organisation established to conduct standardised secondary and higher secondary school-leaving (classes X and XII) examinations. The rationale behind promotion of the Delhi-based CBSE was — and is — to test students of affiliated schools and certify them if they are sufficiently proficient in English (or Hindi), maths, science and the humanities, and ready for undergraduate education. As such CBSE (estb.1962), which over the past half century has evolved into India’s largest national school examinations board with 18,006 (on September 30, 2016) Central government, private aided and unaided (financially independent) schools affiliated with it, has a limited mandate viz, to conduct the board’s class X and XII examinations and certify students of affiliated schools. For the privilege of being affiliated with CBSE, school managements pay prescribed initial and annual fees.
In consideration thereof, the board also prescribes several minimum standards — mandatory classroom sizes, teacher-pupil ratios, teacher qualifications and infrastructure norms — for affiliated schools to better prepare students for its school-leaving exams. But this is an advisory and enabling role of the board.
However over the years, CBSE — described as an autonomous organisation of the Central government under the administrative purview of the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry — has steadily expanded the length, scope and ambit of its affiliation bye-laws which member schools are obliged to follow on pain of disaffiliation. While government CBSE schools are presumably content to follow the expanding set of rules and regulations prescribed by the board, promoters and managements of the 13,657 affiliated private schools — particularly the top-ranked and nationally reputed among them -- are becoming increasingly worried about the steady erosion of their administrative autonomy. In December, CBSE issued two imperious circulars arrogating powers to determine the appointment of principals and teachers, and mandated a Principal Eligibility Test for incumbents of affiliated private unaided schools — clear instances of micromanagement, if not backdoor nationalisation of private schools. Our cover story this month examines the ambit of the administrative power of India’s largest national school board even as a verdict of the Delhi high court on the issue is imminent.
Regular readers of EducationWorld are no doubt aware this publication has established a nationwide reputation as the foremost champion of universal ECCE (early childhood care and education). Last month, we staged our seventh Early Childhood Education National Conference 2017, which attracted ECCE educators from across the country. Our special report feature details the proceedings of this unprecedented ECCE conference. Please read it and join our campaign to make ECCE accessible to all children in the 0-5 age group.