The union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is mulling to introduce CBSE curriculum and syllabus in educational institutions of Kashmir. The move comes in wake of the reorganization of Jammu and Kashmir by Government of India.An official told that a team of MHRD official headed by secretary education and literacy held a detailed meeting with the officials of the school education department and chief secretary wherein introduction of CBSE curriculum was also discussed.
“The main focus in meeting was on allocation of budget for Ladakh as it has become now a separate union territory. The MHRD was finalizing plan for allocation of budget,” a top official told KNO who was part of the meeting. Pertinently, two teams of MHRD arrived in Kashmir from past week to hold deliberations with the school education department regarding functioning of schools and allocation of budget for the union territories.“The team collected the details of schools from primary to higher secondary level and hinted on affiliating few government schools with CBSE. However, there was no official announcement about it,” the official told KNO.Already, advisor Farooq Ahmad Khan during his first meeting after Government of India announced its decision for reorganization of Jammu and Kashmir stated that the department should affiliate one school from each district with CBSE. In the meeting he had said there was no harm if CBSE curriculum was introduced in government schools here.“The department is not sure if the schools will get affiliated with CBSE because they have to meet certain standards to get CBSE affiliation. Everybody is aware about infrastructural and academic standards of government schools,” the official told KNO. He however said there was no bar on private educational institutions to get CBSE affiliations. “Government may also push on this thing because private schools are of high standards in terms of academics and infrastructure,” the official said. The official however said the affiliation of any school with CBSE will give a blow to the JK Board of School Education (BOSE) as the move will bring down the revenue of Board it earns through exams.“If maximum schools get CBSE affiliation, automatically they will be de-affiliated from JKBOSE which will hit the revenue collection of Board,” the official told KNO.Director School Education Kashmir (DSEK) Muhammad Younis Malik meanwhile told KNO that there was no officially decided on affiliation of government schools with CBSE.“The point might have come under discussion in the meeting but nothing was decided officially on this,” he said. (KNO)