After an almost two-year wait during which some candidates selected by the human resource development ministry failed to pass muster, the government has appointed Rajesh Kumar Chaturvedi as chairman of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). He will play a key role in India’s skill development mission, given the government’s plan to assimilate vocational training with school education.

 Mr.Chaturvedi, a 1987 batch Indian Administrative Service officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, will be in charge of the school board until 15 December 2020.

 The decision was taken, barely a couple of days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) rejected Dr Sarvendra Vikram Bahadur Singh, chosen by outgoing Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani.

• Before being appointed CBSE chairman, Mr.Chaturvedi, was posted in the Seventh Pay Commission secretariat, whose recommendations on salary hikes for 10 million central government employees and pensioners have been approved by the government.

• Before joining the Pay Commission team, he was the resident commissioner at Madhya Pradesh Bhawan in Delhi, liaising between state and central government administrations.

• A post-graduate in geography who is fluent in Russian, Chaturvedi has done five brief training stints at various Indian Institutes of Management in subjects ranging from information technology to public policy. He attended two overseas training courses, including one in the UK on human resource development, according to his executive record sheet.

• Chaturvedi, who will be supervising 10 regional offices of the CBSE, will also have to deal with criticism that a lenient assessment system adopted by the central board are forcing state-level school boards to inflate the marks of their own students, making life difficult for students in finding admission to universities.

 Central Board of Secondary Education(CBSE)

The Central Board of Secondary Education (abbreviated as CBSE) is a Board of Education for public and private schools, under the Union Government of India.

• CBSE affiliates all Kendriya Vidyalayas, all Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, private schools and most of the schools approved by central government of India.

• CBSE, which started operation in 1962 with 309 schools, now administers over 16,000 schools and manages the board exams of over 2.5 million students in class 10 and Class 12.

• CBSE is also responsible for conducting the Joint Entrance Exam Main (JEE-Main) the first tier of the two-tier entrance test for selection of students to the Indian Institutes of Technology and other top engineering schools.

• It also conducts the National Eligibility Test (NET) for the University Grants Commission for selection of professors at colleges and universities and Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) for selection of school teachers.