CBSE hikes processing fee to keep out frivolous applications

With the soaring popularity of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools are lining up to affiliate with the Board and in turn offer a higher quality of education to their students. A better brand value is a corollary of associating with the Board. Unfortunately, many of the affiliation seekers do not fulfil even the basic requirements and hence get summarily rejected.

Even though CBSE has migrated its affiliation process online, the entire process of filtering the applications consumes a lot of time and resources. To deter unwanted or half baked applications for affiliation, the CBSE Board has decided to hike its processing fee to 50% from the current 10% of the affiliation fee from rejected applications.

With the approval of the governing body, the central board has modified its bylaws and declared that from the academic session 2016-17 50% of the application fee will be deducted as processing charges, as compared to the 10% earlier. The board rationalised this decision saying that this decision will "discourage fresh applications of schools for affiliation that are not fulfilling essential conditions".

The 50% deduction will apply to applications that get rejected on scrutiny  and which do not even warrant a “school inspection”. For an application to be rejected right at the paper submission stage is proof that there are many things lacking with the school.

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Affiliation fee varies greatly in CBSE, as it depends on the category of school (private, Indian, oversees etc) and the type of affiliation requested (middle class syllabus, fresh provisional, additional subject etc).

To ensure uniformity in quality of education imparted, the board strictly adheres to formulated guidelines to ensure that all of its affiliated schools have a common minimum set-up both in terms of infrastructure and academic facilities.