Cbse seeking transparency a mouse click away

The CBSE has made it mandatory for all affiliated schools to launch and maintain individual websites within six months. Schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)

are adding tech muscle to provide information to all stakeholders as well as to maintain transparency. The CBSE has made it mandatory for all affiliated schools to launch and maintain

individual websites within six months. The websites will have details on CBSE guidelines and norms, information on teachers, student strength, teacher-student ratio and contact details of

administrators. Information related to schools’ governance structure, land area, physical infrastructure and facilities and teachers’ salaries will also be published on the website. In fact,

the board has taken the cyber route according to guidelines set by Kapil Sibal, Union minister for human resource development. The minister issued the guidelines to ensure transparent

functioning of all educational institutes. As many as 10,500 schools in the country are affiliated to the CBSE, besides a few others in foreign countries. “The governing body of the CBSE has

decided to make it mandatory for every affiliated school to develop its own website containing comprehensive information about the school and its management,” CBSE chairperson Vineet Joshi

said in a letter addressed to all CBSE schools. “The information to be provided on the website includes affiliation status, details of infrastructure, names and designations of teachers,

class-wise and section-wise enrollment of students, address (both postal and email), telephone numbers, and details of members of the school managing committee, to name a few. Thus, the

schools need to prepare an annual report containing all information to be uploaded on to its website,” the letter added. The board has also instructed schools to update annual reports

regularly. Incidentally, the Central Information Commission had earlier directed all CBSE-affiliated schools to maintain transparency by publishing reports on the schools’ websites. The

CBSE-affiliated schools in Bangalore welcomed the board’s directive. Many schools already have individual websites. “With the aid of technology, all information will be available to parents

and students at the click of a mouse. We too can maintain our information properly on a single platform,” Manjula Raman, the principal of Army Public School, said.