Necessary to bring CBSE, ICSE schools under civic body: Mayor

Mayor the move will help in checking for RTE compliance and other norms, HT reports.

Despite having received heavy criticism for neglecting its own schools, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) now wants to bring CBSE and ICSE board schools that are regulated by the central government under its purview.

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Referring to stringent implementation of the Right To Education (RTE) Act, mayor Sunil Prabhu on Thursday, said: “Owing to the ever-widening class divide in the city, it is imperative that the implementation of the RTE Act is monitored by the local civic body”.

Currently, apart from the civic run schools, which fall under the jurisdiction of the civic body, the central and respective state governments monitor the implementation of government regulations for all schools that come under the state and central boards. “For localised monitoring of regulations at CBSE and ICSE schools in the city, it is necessary that they are brought under the purview of the BMC. We would write to the state government to amend the specific laws accordingly,” added Prabhu.

With this, the BMC seeks to give itself more powers to pull up private schools and centralised schools for failing to meet government norms.However, the civic body recently diluted control over its own schools when it passed the controversial proposal in July that allowed private organisations or firms to take over the management of BMC schools.

“This is nothing but a display of dubious standards by the BMC. It needs to focus more attention on improving the quality and teaching levels in its own schools,” said a civic official.