CBSE wants international boards reined in; letter to education ministry seeks directions for AIU

NEW DELHI: In a major development, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has written to the ministry of education requesting it to issue instructions to the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) to ensure international boards operating in the country adhere to the regulatory mechanisms of the Government of India and the states.

As the biggest national board, CBSE has raised concerns that international boards and schools affiliated to them do not follow the provisions of the Right to Education (RTE) Act or the regulatory mechanisms of the states and union territories.

Careers360 has a copy of the letter, written by CBSE secretary Himanshu Gupta to PK Banerjee, a secretary in the department of higher education in charge of management, minorities, scholarship, deemed universities, and research councils.

CBSE wants the education ministry to issue directions to the AIU as that is the body which provides equivalence certificates to the board exams and qualifications for admission to higher education and government jobs.

International Boards: IB, IGCSE

There are two major international boards functioning in the country – The International Baccalaureate (IB) and The International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) or Cambridge. There are 205 IB schools in India, while there are over 700 schools offering Cambridge programmes and qualifications.

The IB curriculum is designed to provide learning continuity across three programmes.

• Primary Years Programme (PYP) for pupils aged 3 to 12 years.

• Middle Years Programme (MYP) for 11 to 16 year-olds.

• Programme for Diploma Awards (DP) for 16 to 19 year-olds.

Cambridge is part of the International Education Group at Cambridge University Press and Assessment – “an organisation that provides world-leading academic research, learning and assessment globally, backed by the first-class teaching and research departments of the University of Cambridge”, states its website.

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Many well-known private schools in the country, such as Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Amity International School, Delhi Public School, Woodstock School Mussoorie, Pathways School and others, follow the international boards.

CBSE's Concerns: RTE Act

Gupta’s letter to the ministry, while not naming any board, complains of violations.

It states: "It has been observed that the schools aspiring to become associated with an International Board are not required to be recognised under the RTE Act and are, accordingly, not required to observe the mandatory provisions of the said Act, including, as an initial step, recognition as a school under the Act."

Highlighting the steps taken by CBSE board to implement the National Education Policy (NEP), the letter states, "In view of the mandate of the National Education Policy 2020, CBSE has taken proactive measures to ensure that the new affiliation process is transparent, completely online, more accountable, and reduces compliance burden facilitating ease-of doing-business by time-bound disposal of affiliation without compromising on compliance of the essential requirements of the RTE Act, state education Acts and the safety norms of nodal agencies."

CBSE has more than 30,000 schools affiliated to it in India and abroad for which it conducts Class 10 and Class 12 exams. The board is also known to have re-vamped its affiliation process.

Submissions to UDISE Plus

The CBSE also says that schools affiliated to international boards are not submitting data to the UDISE database.

"The UDISE+ has been developed to maintain the data and provide unique UDISE+ code to schools, however, the schools getting associated with the International Boards do not seem to be required to submit the UDISE+ data as well. It further appears that the schools aspiring to or the schools which are already associated with the International Board are not mandated to observe the regulatory mechanism of their respective state or union territories."

The Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE Plus) is the ministry of education’s database on schools in the country. Pending recognition or closure, as per the RTE Act, even unrecognised schools have submitted data and as Careers360 reported earlier this month, over 22,000 such schools are on the UDISE Plus database.

In contrast, says the board, "The Affiliation Bye-Laws 2018 of the board ensures that the schools affiliated with the board have complied with the regulatory mechanisms of the states/UTs by obtaining the essential documents such as NOC, recognition certificate, building safety certificate, fire safety certificate etc. Every school affiliated with the Board is required to have a UDISE number as mandated by the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India."

No EWS quota

A senior official highlighted that in the absence of a regulatory mechanism, private companies can also run schools through IB or Cambridge.

"This is in total violation to TMA Pai Supreme Court judgement. Now it is being considered by companies now as a profit making business. These schools do not even provide EWS quota reservation," added the official.

Section 12 (1) (C) of the Right to Education Act 2009 mandates 25% reservation for children belonging to the economically weaker section and disadvantaged groups up to Class 8. There has been constant litigation in Delhi seeking an extension of the EWS quota to Class 12.

"Therefore, it is requested that necessary instructions may be issued to AIU so that it can direct international boards functioning in the country to adhere to the regulatory mechanism of the government of India, state / UTs while considering their affiliation with the board," said the letter.