A banner advertising for admissions to a CBSE-affiliated school in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 8: The regional CBSE office here today asked students and parents to be extra careful while choosing a school following detection of institutes claiming false affiliations.

A board official suggested that the students must check the schools’ status before getting admitted.

“Each school has a distinctive affiliation number and a school number. Two schools will never have the same number. Parents can visit the board website at www.cbse.nic.in and click on the permanent affiliation and school directory to verify the status of any particular school,” the senior official said.

Acting on an allegation, the council officials recently inspected one of the oldest schools running from the heart of the city to find that it had no affiliation.

“Following allegations, we visited the school, but despite our attempts, we could not contact their officials. The huge board put around the school claimed that it has got a CBSE affiliation, which is false. They are misleading the public,” said A.S. Verma.

However, no action has yet been taken against the school. “If the schools are not affiliated to the board, we cannot take any action against them. The board is not responsible for either the conduct of examinations or the disbursement of certificates by such schools, which make false claims,” Verma said.

“We have reasons to believe there may have been more such schools in remote areas and towns and parents must take utmost care before getting the students admitted to these institutes,” he said.

The regional board office in Bhubanewar controls 236 schools in the state, 226 schools in Chhattisgarh and 190 schools in Bengal.

The official told the reporters that the regional office had received as many as 172 online applications for answer books (for Class X and XII) under the RTI Act. The students will be provided with the attested photocopies of their answer books.

Besides, 3,488 students belonging to Class XII and 172 to Class X have reassessment of their papers done.

In another development, the board’s compartmental exam for both Class X and XII for July 13 and the last date of application has been extended from July 5 to July 10, so that interested students get a chance, he said.