Schools hail CBSE’s new e-portal

KOCHI: The e-Harkara portal started by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to enable faster communication with schools and ensure smoother complaint redressal is evoking good response from school authorities. Unlike earlier, through this portal schools are now able to send all their complaints, applications, information, and suggestions to the concerned departments and regional offices of CBSE and get solutions immediately.Moreover, CBSE has come out with a compendium of standard operation procedure (SOP) framework for schools to complete academic and administrative tasks without hassles in the current academic year challenged by the pandemic.
Until e-Harkara portal was launched last month, schools had to rely on emails for all communications with the board. The board has clarified that schools will be heard through the e-Harkara portal and email communication will not be encouraged.
The decision is also part of CBSE’s plan of going completely paperless for every kind of correspondence and exchange of information with schools.
“There was a problem of knowing to which department we should write for specific queries, but now the relevant department will get the information through this portal. There was always a confusion regarding the concerned office or official to be contacted, but with the launch of the portal the whole system and services are expected to be more coordinated and sytematic. I submitted a query through the portal and received an automated reply soon after submission,” said Jayaprabha Pradeep, principal, Gregorian Public School, Ernakulam.
All schools have been provided with ID and password to this portal. “It will resolve the hardships of schools in sending paper/mail communication directly to the concerned unit/officer. This will facilitate easy monitoring and disposal of all complaints in a time-bound manner,” said Anurag Tripathi, CBSE secretary, in a statement.
Providing sufficient time and guidance to schools, CBSE for the first time this year, has brought out a comprehensive document titled “Framework and Significant Guidelines in the Context of the Secondary and the Senior School Certificate Examinations - 2020-21” listing out the SOPs for all activities to be performed by schools and students/parents during the entire academic session.
TPM Ibrahim Khan, president, Kerala CBSE Schools Management Association, said that as schools are still closed, they will require more time to complete all processes which are required for examination-related activities.