Bhubaneswar, Jan. 12: Schools trying to get the Central Board of Secondary Education’s affiliation need not waste time waiting for a no-objection certificate from the state government any more.

Board officials here said that according to the councils’ new decision, a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the state government was no longer required for seeking affiliation. “Schools can directly apply to the board online,” Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) regional director A.S. Verma said.

These schools will, however, be required to intimate the state government that they have applied to the CBSE, he said.

Verma said the decision was taken in order to make the process of affiliation faster.

“It was noticed that schools faced a lot of problems due to unnecessary government delays,” he said, adding that the schools could find details about the rules on the council’s website.

However, officials in the school and mass education department said the government had not received any communication regarding the decision.

Earlier, the affiliation by-laws of CBSE said that the schools were required to produce an NOC from the state government before applying for the affiliation. In some cases, the process would take more than two years.

However, the new rules say that a school that applies to CBSE for provisional affiliation has to just intimate the education department and only in the case where the state government has any objection to a particular application does the school need to produce an NOC.

“Otherwise, the board will assume that the state government has no objection,” Verma said.

Open text exam

Students of classes X and XII preparing for the CBSE exams starting on March 1 are excited about the newly introduced open text-based assessment.

“The goal is to reduce rote learning and encourage more application-based learning,” said Verma.

The CBSE’s open text-based assessment will make students use their analytical and logical reasoning skills to answer questions based on the material provided during the exam.

The CBSE material will include data, charts, diagrams and illustrations and will also relate to recent events. With the material being provided during the exam itself, the goal is to reduce rote learning.

A series of training programmes are going on in city schools to help the smooth inclusion of the open text-based assessment into regular school curriculum, Verma added.