Low attendance cases not to go unreported, CBSE seeks regular update from schools

Vinod Kakumanu
July 31, 2019, 7:16 p.m.

A recent directive from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) directs schools to report all cases in which student’s attendance in the class is short to CBSE. The reports must accompany supporting documents. The call with regard to the eligibility of the students with inadequate attendance will be taken by the board in line with the bye-laws.

The directive followed an analysis of performances of students in 2019 that have inadequate class attendance. The grades in majority of the cases were unsatisfactory. The deficit in attendance is reportedly being condoned by the school management and the directive aims to remedy this.

CBSE is set to prepare Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for dealing with students having short attendance.

Notably, the minimum attendance requirements for students to be able to appear in class X and XII examination have been specified in Rule 13 of the Examination Bye-Laws of the Board. The extent to which, and the grounds on which, non-attendance can be condoned has been specified in Rule 14 of the Examination Bye-laws.

The grounds on which the student can be exempted from attending the classes regularly include prolonged illness, loss of mother or father or reasons of similar nature and authorized participation in national and international level sports.

“It was observed that students, parents and schools are not following rules strictly. While students were not submitting desired documents and certificates of the competent authority while seeking exemptions in attendance, schools are not sending all cases of shortage of attendance to the CBSE. As per analysis of the result of 2019 of the students whose attendance had been condoned have performed poorly in the examinations,” a senior board official said.

“The board has prepared SOPs for dealing with students having attendance less than the prescribed percentage of attendance for the information and compliance by schools, students and parents. Schools have been requested to communicate information and rule position to students and parents .In all the cases, the schools will have to submit a request letter from the parent, certificate issued by authority concerned and recommendation of school concerned in the required proforma,” the official added.

“To abide with the directive, every academic session, schools will have to compile the attendance date up to January 1 and identify cases of short attendance. The cases along with supporting documents will have to be sent to CBSE regional office by January 7. The regional offices will communicate any deficiency in documents to the schools and schools will have a deadline to comply by. Last date for according approvals by CBSE will be February 7 before examinations,” the official added.