Maharashtra Education Commissioner Suraj Mandhare Tuesday said that the No Objection Certificates (NoC) of the schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will be cross verified to ensure there are no irregularities.
Mandhare, who is keen on taking serious measures to check malpractices, told The Indian Express that there are over 2,000 schools that are affiliated to the CBSE board in Maharashtra.
The state school education department had initiated an inquiry when they found out that some schools in Pune were functioning as CBSE affiliated ones without the requisite NoC. The Pune police have now launched a probe into the alleged racket of providing fake NoCs.
“The present case relates to procuring fabricated NoCs for CBSE affiliation from the government of Maharashtra. We will now cross verify all the no objection certificates granted to CBSE-affiliated schools and ensure whether they are fake or not. Initially, these will be taken in our possession and checked whether it has been issued by the Maharashtra government or someone has played mischief. Once our inquiry is complete, we will decide on the further course of action,” Mandhare said.
The education commissioner also issued instructions to the department to check why as many as 666 schools across Maharashtra have not yet mentioned the government’s approval number as a part of their data on the Uniform District Information System for Education (UDISE).
The UDISE is the largest management information system initiated by the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, Government of India where data is being collected in real time on various parameters ranging from examination results, infrastructure, enrolments and others.
Mandhare said that they had complete data of 1.1 lakh schools. There were, however, 666 schools where data related to the government approval number is missing on the portal. “Instructions have been issued to investigate this aspect. It is likely that schools may still have to upload data. The probability of a fabricated one is also not being ruled out but it is too early to comment now and our investigations are underway,” he said.
When contacted, a principal of a top CBSE-affiliated school on condition of anonymity said that over the years there has been a huge demand for affiliations of the CBSE board. “This is mainly as the CBSE follows the National Council of Educational Research and Training curriculum – which is the base for most competitive examinations (JEE/NEET and so on) managed centrally by the government,” the principal pointed out.