05 August 2019

The Council for the Indian School Certificate (CISCE) has come up with a common exam schedule for Class 9 and Class 11 students across all its schools to bring uniformity in examinations and to ensure that schools adhere to the syllabus for that year. In a circular released last month, the council has stated that all schools under its jurisdiction would get common question papers of all theory subjects for the two classes. Schools have to then follow the time table prescribed by the council and conduct examinations for the two classes. While theory papers will be set by the council, schools can set papers for practical exams at their level. The council had earlier found that many schools would skip teaching concepts from Class 9 and Class 11 and instead focus on the syllabus of Class 10 and Class 12, which was not the right practice. The CISCE, therefore, took this step to bring uniformity in the syllabus taught in schools under its jurisdiction. In the previous academic year (2018-19), 2,240 schools held Class 10 Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) exams while 1,080 schools held Class 12 Indian School Certificate (ISC) exams. The move, which was earlier planned from 2018-19, was pushed to 2019-20 as the CISCE needed more time to put the required infrastructure and security measures in place. For ICSE Class 9, November session exams will be held between November 4 and 20 this year and the February session exam will be held between February 10 and 26 in 2020. ISC Class 11 students will appear for the November session exams between November 4 and 27 this year and for the February session, between February 10 and March 4 in the next year. Kavita Sanghvi, principal, Chatrabhuj Narsee Memorial School in Vile Parle, welcomed the move and said, “So far, schools were setting their own papers and would have different time tables as per their schedules. Having common question papers would now bring all the students on the same page.”