CBSE gears up to grade schools based on quality of education
CBSE’s
move comes on the heels of the board asking private schools affiliated to it to
stop commercial activities
New
Delhi: After asking schools to focus on education
and avoid commercial activities, the Central Board of Secondary Education
(CBSE) is now ready to grade them.
A
plan to accredit and grade schools in 2013-14 never took off but CBSE, which
functions under the human resource development ministry, is now ready to start
grading schools affiliated with it.
“We
will accredit schools. The focus will be more on quality outcome rather than
infrastructure,” CBSE chairman R.K. Chaturvedi said.
CBSE
has at least 18,000 affiliated schools, most of which are private.
A
government official who asked not to be named said grading schools would help
parents and students.
CBSE
has previously said some of its affiliated schools are adopting unfair means to
promote themselves without focusing on their core functions. The board has also
remarked that some schools are focussed only on infrastructure, without giving
due attention to the teaching or learning environment.
In
April, the board asked all private schools affiliated to it to stop commercial
activities and follow the education by-laws on appointments and daily
functioning. On 20 April, it asked schools to “run as community services and
not as businesses, and ensure that commercialization does not take place in the
school in any shape whatsoever”. It warned schools not to indulge in commercial
activities by selling books, uniforms, etc within the school premise or through
selected vendors.
“The
Union government wants better outcome from schools and several of its
initiatives are directed towards that. The plan to rank states on education
parameters by NITI Aayog, this accreditation plan, are all part of the bigger
plan,” the official mentioned above added.
On
Tuesday, Union human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar also told
reporters that his ministry is now focusing on quality education and has
embarked on a mission “sabko shiksha, achhi shiksha” (quality education
for all) as an extension of the “sabka saath, sabka vikas” (with
everyone, and development for everyone) slogan of the National Democratic
Alliance government.
He
said his ministry would allow more autonomy to high quality institutions. He
added that his ministry is for graded autonomy—the most stringent regulations
for poor quality institutions and the least for high-quality ones.
The
ministry has an accreditation and grading process for institutions of higher
education in India but none for schools.
The
accreditation process for higher education suffers from lack of transparency,
but the government official said that CBSE has the credibility and the
track-record to grade schools.
“The
ministry is streamlining the higher education accreditation process to improve
quality. The CBSE coming forward to do grading (of schools) will mean a better
outcome across the entire education spectrum,” the official quoted above added.
Prashant
Bhalla, president of Manav Rachna Educational Institutions, an education group
that runs a chain of schools and colleges in north India agreed on the need for
accrediting schools.
“The
move will act as check on unfair promises made by some schools. But the bigger
question is, globally, the accreditation process is handled by autonomous
bodies without any partiality.
The ministry
or the CBSE will have to address this issue,” he said.
“Accreditation
should be for a certain period of time and the organization should give an
improvement plan to a school. I feel, personally, accreditation and grading
should be motivational than a punitive exercise,” Bhalla added.
Source | Mint | 17 May 2017
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @
Knowledge Repository
Khaitan
& Co
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