Crackdown on Delhi schools that breach cap of 40 students

NEW DELHI: Private schools affiliated with CBSE may have a tough time registering secondary and senior secondary students as action may be taken against those who have admitted more than the permissible limit of 40 students per section of a class from 2020 .
The schools are up in arms against the standard operating procedures (SOPs) released by CBSE recently as they feel that the Board will be playing a direct role in approving admissions for classes IX and XI.The schools said that CBSE should not be selective in implementing the rules.
There are around 20,000 schools affiliated with CBSE, 17,000 of which are private institutions. The schools that have more than 40 students in a section of Class VIII and have promoted them to Class IX this academic session or admitted additional students are now in a spot of bother.
The SOP issued on July 18 mentions the rules for accepting admissions to classes IX and XI defining 11 categories and formalities that should be followed. A senior CBSE official said they weren't "regulating admissions in private schools," but only ensuring that RTE Act and the Board's rules of maximum permissible class size were not violated. "All CBSE wants is fulfilment of the criteria of examination and affiliation bylaws. Private schools will definitely have to give an explanation if they admit more than 40 students in a section, which is in violation of CBSE rules and RTE Act," the official added.
Many private schools have class sizes beyond 40 in classes VIII and X. In fact, government schools also have more than 40 students. "We are not looking at KVs and other government schools as they are giving free education and not making profits," said the official.
Principals of the private schools, however, argued that CBSE cannot be partial as RTE Act and CBSE rules are for all affiliated institutions.
"CBSE has the data of all 20,000 schools on its portal. It knows exactly how many children are studying in which class. A majority of the schools have class sizes of more than 40. If they want to implement the rules honestly, CBSE should ask schools to correct the anomaly in one year or face action," said the principal of a prominent south Delhi school.