In recent months as the start of the new academic year approaches, several privately-promoted primary-secondary schools ranked respectably in the authoritative annual EducationWorld India School Rankings league tables, have complained that the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and its long-serving secretary-general Gerry Arathoon in particular, are rejecting affiliation applications of high-potential, capital-intensive schools for nit-picking bureaucratic reasons.

The intransigence of Arathoon who has reportedly repeatedly refused to forward the affiliation application of a well-ranked, staffed and furbished school (which has provided full particulars to EducationWorld) to the council’s board is baffling, as in the race for affiliations between the country’s two pan-India national school exam boards — the Central government promoted CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and CISCE — the latter is a distant also-ran. Whereas CBSE has 20,000 private schools affiliated with it, CISCE has a mere 2,247. And since schools pay annual affiliation and per student examination fees to these boards, CISCE is sacrificing revenue.

Unsurprisingly, school managements are becoming disenchanted with CISCE. Last year, the top-ranked Doon School, Dehradun disaffiliated itself from CISCE and has become an IB school of the International Baccalaureate, Geneva examinations board. Reportedly experiencing heavy in-fighting and factionalism, India’s hitherto most respected school examinations board is rapidly rolling downhill.

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