CBSE schools to get mandatory accreditation within 3-5 years

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, December 3

All the schools of the state affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which have applied online for mandatory accreditation called the School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Scheme (SQAAS), will be required to get themselves accredited within a span of three to five years.

Sources said under the process, the schools had been asked to bring out necessary amendments in their affiliation and examination byelaws. In this regard, the CBSE would constitute an expert advisory committee (EAC).

However, accreditation of the schools would be done by the agencies other than the CBSE. The schools had also been asked to regularly visit the CBSE website for getting updated on various policies and schemes.

“The school should make arrangements as per the Peer Assessor Team (PAT) visit schedule for coordinating the availability of students, teachers, etc, apart from access to physical infrastructure, documents, etc, required to be produced by the school for verification to the team members. The schools should act in a professional manner and not resort to any unwanted actions which are not desirable as per the broad mandate of the CBSE,” a statement said.

The sources added that after the visit, the schools would be given a school quality enhancement report (SQER), which should be thoroughly gone through and necessary action taken accordingly for improving the quality of teaching and learning at the school.

Further, a school, which got a score of 75 per cent or above (overall) and minimum 50 per cent in each domain, would be declared accredited by the CBSE. The school’s name would be then listed on the CBSE website under the list of accredited schools. The institutions could use the terminology “affiliated and accredited CBSE school” instead of only using “affiliated to CBSE”.

The sources added that none of the CBSE-affiliated schools in Jammu had been given accreditation till now as they had recently applied for online SQAAS, but they were very much in the process of completing all the required formalities to get the mandatory accreditation.

Once the PAT members returned after the SQAAS visit, the agency should compile the school quality enhancement report (SQER) in a comprehensive manner for submission to the school. The score card, if qualifying for accreditation along with school quality assessment and accreditation report (SQAAR), should be submitted to the CBSE for final approval with a copy of instruments.

The CBSE would further communicate with the school. In case a school did not qualify, the agency would write back to the school with the score analysis and SQER for the school to improve and apply after a gap of minimum six months.