Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Will Continue to Crack the Whip on Dummy Schools

Secretary Himanshu Gupta said at an event in a Lucknow school on Monday, that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will continue to crack the whip on dummy schools. Dummy schools are those where minimum attendance is not compulsory and which have tie-ups with coaching institutes. Admissions in Dummy schools require a particular amount of nominal fees which help students study in coaching institutes of JEE or NEET and make their preparations stronger for the examination, students only visit the schools during the board examinations.

Mr. Gupta said “Surprise inspections are regularly being conducted in CBSE schools across the country to check whether the schools are running as per the provisions and norms contained in affiliation and examination by-laws. We are going tough on such institutions and stringent action will be taken against the errant schools”.

CBSE school principal said, “This is the manifestation of commercialization and commodification in school education. This existed earlier also but has become rampant now. This is there in ICSE board too and is done by schools in collusion with coaching institutions.”

One of the teachers said, “Coaching institutions have expanded so much now that they have become bigger than the formal schooling system. Most of the data sent by many schools to boards are fake, unreliable and in some cases, may not even exist. The respective so-called students may not even undergo any schooling process. We need to take strong measures to stop this practice. It will be good if CBSE bye-laws become an Act so that strong punitive measures can be taken, besides downgrading and disaffiliation of schools”.

“This year, in March, the CBSE found that some 20 such schools in India, including three from U.P, were committing various malpractices of presenting dummy students, ineligible candidates and not maintaining records properly. After a thorough inquiry, CBSE decided to disaffiliate them,” he said to the press at Seth Anandram Jaipuria Group of Schools that organised the third edition of “Re Skilling – Up Skilling: Jaipuria Annual Refresher Training 2024.” The initiative came in for praise from the CBSE secretary.
He further said, “There are various ways that CBSE can find out if an affiliated institution is following prescribed norms or it is giving dummy institutions. We check the number of teachers hired by the schools, teacher’s pay slips, admission of students without proper registration, kind of logistics schools have, attendance register and, of course, if there are any complaints against the institution. And CBSE will not hesitate to disaffiliate them after verifying all facts”.