CBSE to charge fee for closure of schools

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) affiliated schools will now have to pay a fee to get the board's approval for closure.

According to revised affiliation bye-laws of the CBSE, while the private schools will have to pay Rs 1 lakh to the board for closing down the educational institution. The board will charge Rs 50,000 from the schools, run or aided by the government, for granting permission for their closure.

In the revised bye-laws, the CBSE has also introduced a provision for considering grant of “on demand affiliation” to private schools, albeit at a higher rate of the processing fee, for those missing the stipulated time-frame for submission of application online.

While the “on demand” grant of affiliation by the CBSE will cost Rs 10 lakh to the schools applying for it, the “on demand” grant of the board's approval for introduction of additional subjects in any private school will cost Rs 1 lakh, excluding fee for re-inspection of the schools and charges on other heads.

In it's revised bye-laws, the CBSE board has also made a provision for considering the request of the schools which have applied for affiliation from the next academic session but want to prepone the session of affiliation to the current session.

Such schools will have to pay a hefty additional fee for the processing of their application.

For grant of affiliation with preponement of the session for middle-class syllabus, the CBSE will charge an additional fee of Rs 2 lakh from private schools in India and Rs one lakh from government or government-aided schools.

Schools will have to pay an additional fee of Rs 5 lakh for affiliation with preponement of the session each for fresh affiliation up to secondary level, upgradation of middle school to secondary level (class X), fresh affiliation up to senior secondary level (class XII) and upgradation of secondary schools to senior secondary level.

The revised affiliation rules, which came into immediate effect with its notification by the CBSE recently, is applicable to all private, and government and government-aided schools affiliated to the board.

At present, the fee for general affiliation, granted to private schools for a period of three years or as specified by the board, is currently Rs 50,000 for middle schools approval, Rs 1 lakh for upgradation of middle schools to secondary level, Rs 1.50 lakh for fresh affiliation up to secondary classes and Rs 2.50 lakh for fresh affiliation up to senior secondary level .

For the government schools or schools run by the central government bodies and ministries, the processing fee is currently fixed at Rs 20,000 each for grant of affiliation for the middle school, upgradation of middle schools to secondary level, fresh affiliation upto secondary classes and fresh affiliation upto senior secondary level.