Tawde mulls over setting int'l board within MSBSHS

Mumbai: The state education ministry is considering setting up of a “State International Board” within the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHS). State education minister Vinod Tawde has sent a proposal to academicians and education experts for implementation of the project.

Through this project, students of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) will be given an option to study under an international board if they so wish. However, even after getting the international board tag, the schools will continue to function under the Maharashtra Board and the state guidelines. The aim of the project is to give students a taste of the international board without getting enrolled under central boards such as the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE).

Mr Tawde said, “We want to provide an additional option to students with the state so that they don’t need to approach other state boards for an international curriculum. With this project, they can have multiple options but within the state protecting our culture and language.”

The minister said that the project will provide SSC students a new platform to study the international curriculum of boards such as International Baccalaureate (IB) and International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) that follow the Cambridge University curriculum. According to the proposal, as a pilot project, the state might hand over control to a cluster of schools to see if things go as planned. The condition for these clusters is that they should have over 50 to 100 schools in order to acquire the project and see if it can be implemented in a proper way.

State edu apparatus

• SSC schools have nine divisional boards located at Amravati, Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Konkan, Latur, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik and Pune.
• The number of SSC schools in Mumbai region (Mumbai, Thane, Raigad) are around 1,484.