Schools Asked by CBSE to do Self-Assessment Against SQAA Framework

Vinod Kakumanu
April 6, 2023, 5 p.m.

All schools must complete a mandatory prior self-evaluation against the school quality assessment and assurance (SQAA) framework, according to a notification from the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). With effect from the academic year 2023-24, CBSE will begin implementing the SQAA framework in all its affiliated schools as they apply for new affiliation, switchover, upgradation, and extensions of schools via the School Affiliation Re-engineered Automation System (SARAS) portal.

Every year, between April 1 and December 31, all CBSE affiliated schools are required by the board to do self-evaluations on the SQAA portal. As per a CBSE statement, "It is hereby informed that all schools applying for Fresh Affiliation/Switch Over/Upgradation/Extension beyond April 2023 shall have to mandatorily submit the self-assessment under SQAA. Applications under SARAS shall be processed only after the school has completed Self-Assessment against the Framework on the CBSE SQAA Portal.”Using annexure A and B, schools can conduct the self-assessments .

The validity of the self-assessment will be for one year. The process must be repeated by the school in order to satisfy all requirements, if the validity has expired at the time of submission. The board also advised that schools maintain a record of their own supporting documents. A panel of specialists from CBSE will later verify the self-evaluation after reviewing a random sample of 5% of all applications received in each category. The supporting documentation must be uploaded by the randomly chosen schools for the physical quality review, as and when instructed.

On logging into the SQAA portal, only the schools will be able to access the self-assessment, which won't be made publicly available. The self-evaluation will not be used by CBSE to rank schools. Orientation sessions will be organised for all schools by the board in April 2023.