CBSE Launches a ‘Foreign Cell’ to Assist its 60,000 Students across 25 Countries

To provide right academic and administrative support to its schools outside India, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has launched a Foreign Schools Cell (FSC) that is based in Delhi. The FSC will help the board to cater to the requirements of its increasing number of students at foreign schools.

The FSC will look after the CBSE affiliated schools in 25 countries worldwide. It will serve as a central contact point for foreign CBSE schools to coordinate and resolve complaints and to look into any requirement of more than 60,000 students at those schools.

According to a circular posted on the Board's website, a Foreign Schools Cell has been created in the Regional Office of Delhi in view of large number of CBSE schools in 25 countries and 60,300 candidates registered from Classes IX to XII.

Since a large number of students registered with the Board in foreign schools, the FSC staff will include two superintendent rank officials in addition to the senior CBSE official Sanjay Sachdeva, who currently in-charge of the CBSE-i unit. These officials will deal with the issues regarding affiliation, academics, examinations, publications and coordination.

A subsidiary education board associated with CBSE, the CBSE-i has a curriculum that focuses on students who plan to go abroad for higher education. Since its inauguration in last year, around 300 schools have applied for CBSE-i curriculum; among them 30 has already started working with the same, said Vineet Joshi, the chairman of the Board.

Therefore, the Board speculates that the officials' experience with CBSE-i will help them in handling FSC's operation smoothly. The officials will have the responsibility of ensuring that a proper support system is available 24x7 hours for the foreign CBSE schools and they are receiving proper professional advice as well.