INTRODUCTION
Central Board of Secondary Education has been operating in the field of education for the last 65 years. It was set up by a special resolution of Govt. of India in 1929. Initially, it served a number of states which included the erstwhile states of Rajputana, Madhya Bharat and other states of Central India. It had already acquired the status of a Regional Board by serving several states of western and central India. It was reconstituted in 1962 and the Delhi Board was merged with it. Consequently, its Headquarters were shifted to Delhi and it acquired an All-India status with its jurisdiction spanning entire country and extending beyond the national boundaries.
The Board was set up to play a lead role in the field of secondary education and was charged with the specific responsibility of ;
(i) raising the standards of secondary education.
(ii) making the services of the Board available to various educational institutions in the country.
Consequent upon its reconstitution and acquiring an all-India status, the Board was assigned the responsibility of meeting the educational needs of those students whose parents have to move from state to state prompted by rapid industrialization of the country and various socioeconomic developments. The Board has, over the years grown tremendously from mere 309 schools in 1962 to 3787 in 1993. Presently, it is about to cross the threshold mark of 4000 secondary and senior secondary schools affiliated with it.
The Board has a variety of institutions affiliated with it which includes the Kendriya Vidyalayas, the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, the institutions run by Directorates of Education, Delhi, Chandigarh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Andaman & Nicobar islands, schools run by various defence establishments, paramilitary organisations and public undertakings. It also includes a large number of self- financing institutions run on public school lines and those run by private and philanthropic organisations The Board also meets the educational needs of the children of Indian Community settled abroad, more particularly in the Gulf region. it has 62 schools affiliated with it which are located in the countries like U.A.E., Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Ethiopia, Nepal, Russia and a host of other countries.
1. AN INSTRUMENT OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM Though the Board is primarily an examining body, it has been charged with the responsibility of improving educational standards at the secondary and senior secondary stages.. Since its reconstitution it has been providing a major thrust towards
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improving the general standards of education. The Board chalks out major curricular policies and programmes, designs syllabi and courses in different areas of school education, brings out text-books and develops a variety of support materials. 'Stress is laid on modernisation of teaching-learning process. In keeping with the diverse requirements of its mobile population the Board has come out with a flexible curricular-design which, besides giving exposure to wide spectrum of knowledge, is also able to meet the demands of different regions in the country. This is, indeed, a formidable task yet the Board has been able to meet the emerging challenges by becoming more responsive to the changing needs.
The Board has played a pioneering role in all sectors of school education. in 1975-76, it was the first school education Board to implement the 10+2 pattern in the country, in consonance with the National Education policy of 1968. Concurrently, it took a pioneering step in having a comprehensive look at the entire gamut of school education and designed curricula which were forward looking and revolutionising in character. It brought about reforms in the field of measurement of evaluation, work education, vocational education and adopted such measures which improved the quality of education at the grass root level. In pursuance of the National Educational Policy of 1986, it once again reviewed its curricular, structure and came out with syllabi and courses which provide greater thrust to science education, growth in other non-scholastic areas and strengthening vocational education. The Board has adopted a multi-pronged strategy for the overall qualitative improvement of education in the schools affiliated with it.
2. MAJOR AREAS OF THRUST In recent years, significant advance has been made in the following major areas:
2.1 Curriculum Renewal The Board constantly renews and up-dates its curricula in order to keep pace with the developments in different disciplines and in other aspects of human life. While doing so, it keeps its eyes set on national ideals and goals e.g., National solidarity, secularism and sense of equality. Pride in national composite culture and awareness about various issues emerging at the national and inter-national levels e.g. protection of human environment, consciousness for human rights, need for peace and amity and challenges posed by modern technological advances are the few concerns which find reflection in the CBSE Curricula. These curricula have earned wide recognition both at the national and international levels which is borne out by the achievement shown by the CBSE students in various competitive examinations held at the national level and eminent positions they occupy in their professions and the society. The Board's energies are intensively directed towards making its curricula and courses highly forward-looking.
Sahodaya 4 : Introduction 3
2.2 Vocationalisation In recent years, work education and vocational education too have received a great fillip at the secondary and senior secondary stages. Keeping in view the requirements of different regions and resources available, the Board has provided more than 42 different types of vocational courses belonging to the disciplines of engineering, agriculture, commerce & trade, Home Science, paramedical courses and those belonging to the small and cottage industries sector.
In 1989-90, efforts were also made to directly link these courses with the needs of the industry. With this object in view, the public undertakings like Indian Railways, General Insurance Corporation of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, were invited to identify their manpower needs. The Board collaborated with these agencies in evolving courses which make students more employment-worthy. These courses have been widely acclaimed for their professional inputs.
2.3 Examination Reform Programme The curricular change was complemented by multi-faceted reform in examinations. The reform in this sector was mainly directed towards improving the quality of question papers, quality of individual questions and improving the testing procedures. The schools too 'were encouraged to take up similar innovations in their internal examinations. With this object in view,, it brought out a large number of sample question papers in different areas and other supportive literature which could help them in organising their own testing procedures in a more scientific way.
As part of this, greater emphasis was laid on :
(i) comprehensive and continuous evaluation
(ii) encouraging pupil's growth in non-scholastic areas and evaluating the growth.
(iii) Devising a comprehensive certificate of achievement highlighting the positive achievements in different sectors of pupil's growth'.
2.4 Other Innovative Projects During the last two years noticeable progress has been achieved in several other innovative fields.
(i) Futurology was introduced as one of the elective activities under Work Experience to equip the children with such insights and competencies which help them face the challenges successfully; posed by rapid technological advancement in different fields of human activity.
(ii) Necessary elements of Population Education were incorporated in the curricula of various disciplines in order to raise awareness among children about population control and having small family norms. Support material was brought out in the form of comprehensive brochures for the use and guidance of the practising teachers.
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(iii) A comprehensive project was taken up for improvement of teaching English language and prompting such skills as listening, reading, writing and speaking so that the learners may make use of the language in day-to-day situations with greater degree of confidence. This project has been acclaimed world over and the collaborative agencies like British Council cite it as one of the best projects ever undertaken by them on the global scale which could generate such a far reaching impact.
The Board's faith in innovations has received further boost from other state boards who have decided to adopt curricula and academic material developed by CBSE. in this entire effort, the support and cooperation extended by the agencies like Ministry of Human Resource Development, NCERT, KVS and Directorates of Education, connected with CBSE as also of the sister Boards had been invaluable.
3. SECONDARY EDUCATION-A VITAL LINK The Secondary education provides a vital link between elementary education and tertiary education. The reforms executed at this level exercise tremendous influence both at the elementary and the tertiary stages. The curricula and courses set at the secondary stage and the standards regulated by the public examinations conducted by the Board, filter down and motivate qualitative change in the teaching - learning process. At the tertiary stage the overall quality of education is improved by the product which is sent out to colleges and institutions of higher learning. Though considerable attention has been given at the national level to the secondary education, however, compared to the other two sectors, it remains very Much neglected and has to fend its own way. The encouraging feature , however, is that the secondary education has acquired its own momentum in recent years. It would be difficult to continue with the momentum unless the support comes from the Govt. in adequate measure through larger allocations. The Boards, particularly those which are self-financing in character, find it hard to support the programmes of qualitative improvement which demand large amount of human and material resources. A mechanism perhaps may have to be evolved at the Govt. level to sustain the Boards in their efforts; though maintaining their autonomy in functioning.
4. SCHOOLS AS IMPORTANT PARTNERS Schools undoubtedly are an important agency for implementing various plans and policies of the Board; of both academic and administrative nature. They are a significant link for disseminating quality education to students spread all over the country and abroad. CBSE does its best to strengthen the efforts of schools in carrying out their normal functions effectively, by means of quality syllabi, resource materials, support material and directions to the schools, yet much comes out of their own dynamism and managing capabilities.
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5. ROLE OF THE SAHODAYA SCHOOL COMPLEXES In 1987, CBSE brought out a publication titled, 'Freedom to learn and freedom to grow through Sahodaya School Complexes", which characterised 'S S Cs" as a voluntary association of schools in a given area, who through mutual choices, have agreed to come together for a systematic and system-wide renewal of the total educational process. It identified five areas, to begin with, for collaboration among schools of the complex :
- Human resource mobilisation - Professional growth of teachers - Value-oriented school climate - Evaluation - Educative management - Vocationalisation of education
Through positive promotional efforts, the Board has helped schools come together and form into an interactive and sharing relationship. At present there are 60 such complexes which are active through out the country and share and care for each other; particularly those which are in close physical proximity.
In order to give boost to their efforts, the Board organises national meets of the S.S. Complexes from. time to time to deliberate on educational issues which are of national significance and to generate consensus thereon to help schools' complexes identify their own role in the changing scenario and adopt innovative and scientific practices, for quality education with particular reference to Secondary and Sr. Secondary stages., Three such conferences have been held in the past, at Modipuram, Cochin and Jaipur. The Third National Conference dwelt on the theme Effective Curriculum Transaction in Schools' as it was felt that success of any educational programme, more so at school stage, depended on the teacher and effective presentation of curriculum.
6 EFFECTIVE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT AND
EMERGING MULTISIDED CHALLENGES Effective school management has always been- a burning issue. The role other school Principal has undergone tremendous change in the wake of evergrowing demands put on the school system due to increasing application of science and technology in every sphere of life and resulting changes in the socioeconomic conditions all over the world. For survival and growth, he has to keep pace with the outside world, which has made school- management, indeed, a multi-sided challenging task.
For institutional growth, perspective planning and resource management are a school manager has to keep in view the multiple demands made on the
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schools system, limited financial, physical and human resources and gear itself up for unforeseen changes that may come on its way of meeting its objectives which, too, are rapidly changing over the years. Achieving academic excellence has, now, given way to achieving over all human excellence which involves, besides academic achievement, multi-sided aspects of human growth and personality, providing inputs of varied nature in addition to scholastic, observing and assessing growth in different areas, concept of life-enrichment, career growth and harmonious development.
Over the years, schools have come out of the four walls limiting them to classroom teaching only. Now, schools are taking up leadership in many welfare and awareness programmes of the community, population education, community health and hygiene, adult literacy and, thereby, contributing to collective development of all.
A successful management has to meet all these expectations and face problems and challenges with ease without feeling the burden of it. This is what creates a question in one's mind whether the concept, of a successful school manager is a myth or a perceivable reality.
7. ISSUES BEFORE THE CONFERENCE The Fourth National Conference is meeting to deliberate on some of these crucial issues under the theme 'School Management-Emerging Challenges', which have acquired particular significance over the past few years. For the first time, papers on relevant issues related to the theme have been invited from participating chairpersons, secretaries and other member-principals of the Sahodaya Schools Complexes. CBSE earnestly hopes that the contributions made by the School Managers/Principals would go a long way in identifying the challenges confronting the schools and finding ways and means to manage them well in their quest for attaining still higher standards. It is our sincere wish that guide-lines and strategies that emerge from deliberations in the Conference would enable schools to face new Challenges and gear up their managements on scientific lines based on sound pedagogical considerations.
H.R. SHARMA Director (Academic)