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Starting a CBSE School Abroad / Foreign (outside of India)

Starting a CBSE School outride of India in the foreign country

Indians are everywhere, that is what it seems when you travel or watch match on telly, and we take exceptional pride in it.

According to a news published by the Economic Times, India was the leading country of origin of international migrants in 2019 with a 17.5 million strong diaspora, according to new estimates released by the United Nations, which said the number of migrants globally reached an estimated 272 million. 

It is only obvious that a lot of this diaspora is looking to send their children to CBSE school for multiple reasons;

  1. Quality of Schools / Education Board in that city / country
  2. Uncertainty with regards to their jobs and the possibility of coming back to India. CBSE, possibly provides that continuity
  3. Belief in what they have experienced and gone through and want the same for their children
  4. Higher Education at Indian University for their children as India is possibly one of the cheaper destinations for Higher Education
  5. The Diplomats

There has been a lot of interest in the private unaided schools segment to start schools outside India and a now according to the official website of CBSE, there are 220+ government as well as private affiliated schools in different countries outside India. The Gulf Countries UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, SAUDI ARABIA, KUWAIT, OMAN, NEPAL, QATAR, BAHARIN have more than 6 schools each and in UAE alone has 78 schools catering to a large 2 million strong Indian population.

So, how can one start CBSE School in Foreign Country / Abroad outside of India – The answer to that is process largely stays the same, the only difference here is the formation of the Equivalent ‘Not-For-Profit’ in the country where one is looking to start.

Let us discuss this in details by taking an example from Dubai from this school called – Global Indian International School LLC, Dubai. In Dubai, GIIS is managed by Global K-12 MENA FZE. FZE basically means Free Zone Establishment. FZE is a single share holder limited liability company which can be incorporated in all UAE Free Zone. FZE is a company with single owner the share capital belongs to a single owner. This is vastly different from the case in India where they operate at seven locations at Hyderabad, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad, Noida, Bangalore, and Indore under the Trust named ‘FIVE PILLAR EDUCATION TRUST’. This trust is not for profit in nature.

So let us now try to decode the CBSE Bye – Laws for (Foreign) Schools looking to start outside of India

  1. NOC from the Embassy – The embassy is supposed to do the due diligence and certify two things
  • The entity running the school is following the law of the land (in that country)
  • Has the requisite permission to run the school as per the education policy of that country

2. The other parameters like Teachers and their salary – The school has to follow the norms prevalent in that particular country.

3. School Management Committee for the CBSE School abroad – Follow the local law and create an SMC. Only if the law doesn’t permit, the school is exempted.

4. Rest of the provisions like Hygiene, Fire & Building safety etc are there.

Cost of Affiliating a School outside of India – For the academic year 2021-22, the Fee ranges from 2 Lacs INR to 2.5 Lacs INR.

Abhiney Singh
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2 thoughts on “Starting a CBSE School Abroad / Foreign (outside of India)”

  1. Amit anand
    Reply

    Hi ,

    I’m living in Cambodia. Being an Indian I feel need of cbse curriculum school.

    I would be obliged if you could share some of the tips and steps including following points:
    1) basic criteria for gating affiliation from case.
    2). Prerequisites for starting school in the new country
    3) initial investments, pulling in investors, if loan can be granted
    4) any other tips.

    Thanks,
    Amit anand
    +855 78888957

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