The new bye-laws of the Central Board of Secondary Education have given the board more power to downgrade the affiliated schools from senior secondary to secondary level, restrict the number of sections, and debar them from sponsoring students in board examination etc. reports Daily Pioneer.

Schools guilty of irregularities in financial, administrative, examination and academic matters would be liable to various actions including issuing a written warning, levying fine up to Rs 5 lakh, suspension of affiliation and debarment from applying for membership and withdrawal of the application.

The by-laws say that “CBSE may impose fines in case of malpractices during examinations, academic, administrative and financial irregularities and established violation or non-compliance of court or government orders,”

Other grounds for the penalty would also include shortcomings in affiliation requirements detected at any stage, withdrawal of recognition by the state government and poor academic performance of school for three consecutive years.

Schools that fail to send its teachers or principal for training as per the requirement of bye-laws and not cooperating with the board by deputing teachers for reviewing answer sheets of board examinations would also attract penalty and action from the board.

“By verification of facts regarding complaints on erring schools, the board shall serve a show-cause notice to the school set out reasons for the proposed action and the school will be required to reply within 30 days. The reply will be scrutinised by the board and action regarding the closing of the complaint, or imposing penalty will be taken accordingly,” the bye-laws read.