New Delhi, May 7: Invigorated by the Supreme Court’s verdict upholding 27% reservation for OBCs in higher education, HRD minister Arjun Singh has now turned his attention to another important emerging area—international schools and policies governing them.

The HRD minister is intent on giving the sector— so far operating without any proper guidelines—a framework of rules and regulations to begin with. Singh not only wants to route their approval through his ministry, he is even determined to limit the number of foreign teachers in such "international" schools to 20% of the total strength. Most importantly, the minister wants to ensure that all international schools operating in India will have inculcate values relating to Indian culture, secularism and diversity in their curricular and co-curricular activities.

The need to regulate ‘‘international’’ schools or institutions affiliated to foreign boards, government circles indicated, has been felt in the wake of mushrooming of such schools in recent years. For instance, the number of schools affiliated to International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) has grown from 2 in 1998 to 33 in 2006 and number of schools affiliated to Cambridge International Examination (CIE) to 148 the same year. The HRD ministry has noted that many of these schools have been established without approval of the central government and are employing a large number of foreign teachers.

The HRD ministry now feels that a well-defined policy on setting up such schools is the need of the hour. It has, therefore, proposed that all international schools will have to obtain specific approval from the HRD ministry before commencing operations. For those schools already in operation, such permission will have to be obtained within a year of promulgation of the requisite notification. The schools will also have to obtain a no objection certificate from the concerned state or UTs before applying for affiliation.

A standing committee to be formed with representatives from educational organisations will also prepare a list of international boards, which will be allowed permission to affiliate schools in the country.

The ministry feels that the number of foreign teachers must be limited, as the country has a large pool of competent teachers. It has also proposed that no foreign national should be appointed principal or head without prescribed qualification and that he should not continue for more than three years. These guidelines, however, will not apply to schools run by foreign missions for their own nationals.