CBSE school fees should follow state govt's norms: Chairman R K Chaturvedi

Gandhinagar: Fees charged by the schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education should be as per the norms fixed by the state government, CBSE chairman R K Chaturvedi said on Saturday.

"Our affiliation by-laws say the fee should be commensurate with infrastructure and facilities offered by the school. The quantum of fee should be on par with the (respective) state government's norms," Chaturvedi said, speaking to reporters at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India here.

Chaturvedi's statement comes even as CBSE schools have moved the Gujarat High Court against the state government's decision to regulate fees of all private schools, including the CBSE-affiliated ones, through the Gujarat Self-Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, 2017.

"(Information about) Fee should be put in the public domain....Logical explanation should be given as to on what basis the fee is charged," he said.

The CBSE is thinking of giving "accreditation" to its affiliated schools, he said.

"We are discussing norms for accreditation. It will decide where the school stands in terms of quality, through a third-party evaluation. It will be then easy for parents to decide how one school is better than the other," he said.

"Results, quality of education, parents' and teachers' satisfaction, retention of teachers, index of happiness, infrastructure, fee, sports, all these parameters will form the basis to evaluate schools. 
We will begin the process from this academic year and implement it by next year," he said.

Chaturvedi was here to meet representatives of CBSE schools from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and discuss with them the Board's decision to do away with school-based examination in Class X, and addition of applied entrepreneurship as a vocational subject for Classes XI-XII.

"We want to associate ourselves with EDII in this regard (additional course)...The concept has been accepted, and details are being worked out," he said.