Board examination is one such time when the students’ mind is filled up with stress and lots of queries related to many things from subject, examinations guides, admit cards, certificate, and centres and so on.
They need a solution, a platform or a guide but the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) which is supposed to clear all the doubts of students through a single platform’ Citizen’s Charter’, is still ‘in process’.
The Citizen’s Charter initiative was started in the year 1997 and the main concept behind the idea was to provide a single platform in each and every Government (Central and State) to improve the quality of public services such as how one can get in touch with its officials, what to expect by way of services and how to seek a remedy if something goes wrong. Further, this charter also imparts knowledge to the citizens about his/her rights and other important rules and regulations.
Unable to find the citizen charter on the website of the CBSE, Delhi University, Indian Institute of Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and others, a former student and an advocate Mohit Kumar Gupta filed a Right to Information (RTI) to the Ministry of Human Resources Department (MHRD) seeking information about the citizen charter.
Sadly, CBSE, JNU and DU do not have a Citizen Charter. In reply to RTI query, the CBSE replied, “It is informed that the preparation of Citizen Charter in respect of CBSE is in process.”
When asked, a DU official on anonymity said that, “The citizen’s charter is important and the varsity should have prepared it. As the Charter has all the information about the varsity, its organisation, college, information about the faculties, students, grievance cell and new initiatives, scholarship, fellowship and so on.
It is like a guide to a citizen about a particular organization. However, many is not followed the ruled and do not have a citizen charter as well as here in the digital days everyone thinks that everything is there is in the Google but it not like that.”
“CBSE being an all Indian institution and prominent school board must cater to the information deficiency gap existing for students, parents and other stakeholders.
The spirit of transparency and accountability must prevail and grievance redressal foe students be incorporated through strict implementation of citizen charter,” said Gupta.