The Haryana Board released a circular on December 8, asking all the schools to submit students’ data on its portal. This circular ended in a controversy that has now blown out of proportion. Being under pressure from the board to provide student data, several schools affiliated with other boards are ready to drag the Haryana Board to the court as providing student data implies that the state board is forcing the schools for dual affiliation.
CBSE and ICSE boards are protesting against the decision of the Haryana Board as they do not allow dual affiliation i.e. a school affiliated to one board cannot take affiliation of the other. It said that the HBSE cannot conduct the board exams for class 8th for schools that do not fall under its preview. This would lead to inter-board conflict and further impact the educational trajectory of the students.
According to the president of the private school association, HSBE is forcing the schools to take affiliation, which he says is a money-making strategy as the board will ask for affiliation fee, registration fee, and then will charge an examination fee.
As the government of Haryana wanted to conduct the board exam for all the schools irrespective of their board except Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya. Haryana board says that they cannot discriminate against the students as there are around 2.15 lakh students in government schools in class 8 and 3.50 lakh students in private schools. If the boards are to be conducted it should be conducted in all schools otherwise students will shift to the schools which do not conduct board examinations.
According to the Haryana board, board exams in all schools are possible as the syllabus in all the schools has been NCERT-approved. Further, the officer adds that the exam-related issues until class 8 are dealt with by the state, and issues only from class 9 to 12 are dealt with by CBSE or ICSE in the case of the respective board.
Speaking on the issue, Education Minister Kanwar Pal Gujjar said that the authorities have reviewed the decision and the order has been withdrawn and the board exam will not be conducted for class 8 at all or at least for schools affiliated to other boards as one board cannot impose rules on the other.
