CBSE school website audit: mandatory disclosures that parents, Google and AI assistants can read

What CBSE’s Circular No. 1/2026 asks of school websites

CBSE Circular No. 1/2026, dated 12 January 2026 and addressed to the heads of affiliated schools, is a reminder to upload or update teachers’ details on the school’s website. It quotes these clauses of the Affiliation Bye-Laws (CBSE Circular No. 1/2026 with Appendix IX, PDF):

Clause 2.4.9: “Every affiliated school will develop their own website containing comprehensive information such as Affiliation status, details of infrastructure, details of teachers including qualifications, number of students, address-postal and e-mail, telephone nos., copies of transfer certificates issued, etc. as may be directed by the Board from time to time. The website so created should also have information with regard to fees charged.”

The circular asks schools to put teachers’ qualification details on their website, as part of the Mandatory Public Disclosure in the revised Appendix IX format, by 15 February 2026 at the latest. It also says non-compliance “shall be viewed seriously as violation of clause 12.2.3, which may lead to imposition of penalty as laid down in Chapter 12 of the Affiliation Bye laws”. Clause 14.5, also quoted, asks schools to post their annual report on the website before 15 September every year. The Indian Express reported the circular on 13 January 2026 (Indian Express).

The revised Appendix IX, section by section

1. A. General information: school name, affiliation number and school code (if applicable), complete address with PIN code, principal’s name and qualification, school email, and contact details.
2. B. Documents and information: copies of the affiliation or upgradation letter and recent extension, society/trust/company registration, NOC from the State or UT (if applicable), RTE Act recognition certificate, building safety certificate as per the National Building Code, fire safety certificate, the DEO certificate or self-certification, and drinking water, health and sanitation certificates with the water testing report. The format asks for self-attested copies.
3. C. Results and academics: fee structure, annual academic calendar, the School Management Committee (SMC) list, the PTA members list, and the last three years’ Class X and XII board results in the table given.
4. D. Teaching staff: principal, vice principal and head, total number of teachers with name, designation and qualification lists for PGT, TGT and PRT, the teachers-section ratio, and details of the special educator and the counsellor and wellness teacher.
5. E. Infrastructure: campus area, number and size of classrooms, laboratories and library, internet facility, toilets (girls, boys, CWSN), and a link to a YouTube video of the school inspection covering infrastructure.

Summarised from the Appendix IX revised format in the circular PDF above. Check the PDF itself, and any later CBSE circular, before you update your site.

Make the disclosure page readable by people and machines

1. Text, not only scans: put sections A, C, D and E on a normal web page as text or HTML tables. Keep the scanned certificates in section B as linked files, and label each link with what the document is.
2. Easy to find: link the Mandatory Public Disclosure page from the main menu or the footer of every page, with that exact name.
3. Dated: show when the page, the fee structure and the academic calendar were last updated, and for which academic year.
4. Consistent: use the same school name, affiliation number, address with PIN and contact details on every page, in your structured data and on your Google Business Profile.
5. Admissions page: classes offered, the admission process and dates, and the fee structure as text, linked to the disclosure page.

Structured data and AI crawler access

Mark up the school with schema.org School (name, url, logo, address, contact details) (schema.org: School). Use it to make the facts unambiguous, not to chase a special result. Google says not to mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page (Google structured data guidelines), and that “there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode” beyond normal SEO best practices (Google: AI features and your website).

Check that your robots.txt doesn’t block the crawlers assistants use to read pages. OpenAI, for example, documents OAI-SearchBot (search) separately from GPTBot (training), and each can be allowed or blocked independently (OpenAI crawlers).

What our audit checks on your website

• Technical SEO basics: title and meta description, headings, HTTPS, mobile viewport, canonical, sitemap, image alt text, page text depth.
• Mobile page speed: a Lighthouse lab test on throttled mobile (performance score, Largest Contentful Paint, blocking time, layout shift, page weight).
• AI search readiness: structured data, FAQ markup, llms.txt, and whether robots.txt blocks the crawlers that ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude use to read the pages they cite.
• Local details: whether your name, address with PIN and contact details are consistent on the page and in your schema.
• Prioritised fixes: P1 / P2 / P3 in plain English, each with how-to steps.

We measure your website. We don’t give legal advice, we don’t review your claims for compliance, we don’t log in to your accounts, and we don’t promise rankings or AI mentions.

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Sources

• CBSE Circular No. 1/2026 (12 Jan 2026) with the revised Appendix IX Mandatory Public Disclosure format, PDF
• Indian Express: CBSE issues notice on mandatory public disclosure norms (13 Jan 2026, updated 14 Jan)
• Google Search Central: AI features and your website
• Google Search Central: structured data general guidelines
• OpenAI: overview of OpenAI crawlers
• schema.org: School

Rules and documentation change. We checked these sources on 18 October 2026. This page is general information, not legal advice. We don’t guarantee rankings, traffic or mentions by any AI assistant.

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