HYDERABAD: Close on the heels of reducing the pass marks for ICSE and ISC students from the next academic year, the CISCE is contemplating another change. Come 2020, the council may even start preparing question papers for the annual examinations of classes IX and XI.
Likely to be introduced in 2020, the rule will be applicable across all 2,100 ICSE and ISC schools of the country, including 41 in the state. While the question paper will be sent by the Board, schools will continue to assess answer scripts and prepare results. Currently, several boards follow the practice of preparing the question papers for classes IX and XI before the students appear for the board examinations.
For instance, the Telangana Board of Secondary Education (Telangana BSE) prepares the annual examination question paper from class VI onwards. The West Bengal WB Higher Secondary Council too sets the questions paper for class XI annual examinations. Recently, the CBSE has also decided to implement the rule. Maya Sukumar, principal of Gitanjali School, Begumpet said that the move was a follow up of the recent-syllabus change undertaken by CISCE.
The proposal mooted by the chief executive and secretary of Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), Gerry Arathoon, at the recently-concluded annual conference of Association of Schools For the Indian School Certificate in Jaipur, is being seen as a step to curb the practice of teaching topics that are meant for next class.
“A lot of schools would hurriedly finish the current year’s syllabus and teach some topics from the next year’s syllabus as well. With the revised syllabus in place, the number of books for certain subjects have gone down.”
“The syllabus now is enough to be completed in class XI and there is no need to begin teaching it in the previous class. The Board wants to ensure that this is happening, hence this proposal,” said Sukaumar.
Teachers agree that often they begin teaching parts of English, Maths and science syllabus, after completing the current class syllabus so that there some lesser pressure on the students just before the boards.
“Students particularly find Shakespeare difficult, so if we start teaching it from the last term of class VIII, by ISCE (class X boards) students would have revised the same so many times that its a smooth sail in the Boards,” said teacher who did not wish to be named.
She added that this, however, was cannot be done for students appearing for ISC (class XII boards). Reshma Joshi, principal of Sri Aurobindo International School, Vidyanagar, said though the CISCE’s decision would be a good help to the schools, teacher and students are bound to be apprehensive.
“Currently, different schools follow books by different publications. There is a need for common core books otherwise students will face issues. Though some guidelines were issued last year after the syllabus underwent a change, there is no mention of the books that schools need to follow,” she said.