Who governs Cambridge affiliated schools in J&K?

Srinagar, Dec 9: Over the past few years, several JK Board of School Education (BOSE) affiliated private schools across the Valley have switched their affiliation while other schools are in process of switching their affiliation to other national and international boards.

The move under which the schools are switching their affiliations to different international boards particularly Cambridge, has created apprehensions among the parents about the regulation of these institutions post shifting of the affiliations.

The management of a private school in Srinagar, previously affiliated with the JKBOSE, has issued a communication to the parents that the school will include Cambridge curriculum from 2025-2026 academic session. The school has informed the parents that the fee structure will remain unchanged while they have sent class wise rates of textbooks to the parents. As per the rate list, one set of textbooks for class 1st primary to class 5th costs Rs 4300.

Various schools have started the process of shifting to other boards after the J&K government issued strict orders to private schools for adopting JKBOSE prescribed textbooks for all the classes.

Earlier, the private schools would prescribe the textbooks of private publishers to students and would install the stalls within the school premises and sell these textbooks at exorbitant rates along with the school uniforms.

A top official of the School Education Department (SED) in knowhow of the things said the schools have to first get registration from the concerned administrative department and later they can get affiliated with any board, recognised by the Government.

“But in case the school wants to switch the affiliation, the schools have to obtain NoC from the department,” the official said.

The official said that apart from JKBOSE and CBSE there were other boards including ICSE and several schools were affiliated with the board across India.

“The government of India has also recognised Cambridge as one of the Boards and various schools get affiliated with the Board. Some schools are already affiliated with Cambridge,” the official said.

About the apprehensions of regulations of these schools, the official said the schools irrespective of their affiliation are regulated by the Fee Fixation and the Regulation Committee (FFRC) constituted by the J&K Government.

“It is true that FFRC will fix high fees for Cambridge schools as compared to JKBOSE affiliated schools because these institutions get Cambridge affiliation on the basis of the infrastructure which meets the Cambridge standards,” the official said.

The official said that there are standing orders and rules for regulation of the private schools by FFRC irrespective of the affiliation but there was poor implementation of these rules in schools.

“If the government will act strictly, no school will give an arbitrary hike in fees be it JKBOSE affiliated or Cambridge school. There are set norms but implementation is poor which puts the parents at the receiving end,” the official said.