The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), which conducts ICSE and ISC examination, has realigned ISC (Class XII) science syllabus, bringing it in sync with that of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
The move on Tuesday comes in the wake of exodus of students from ISCE schools to those run by the CBSE. The move, the CISCE authorities said, would “remove the perception” among parents and students that the CBSE prepares students for medical and engineering entrance examinations.
From this academic session
“In order to convince students and parents that the syllabus of ISC and CBSE Class XII is same, we have realigned our physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology syllabus with that of CBSE. We were compelled to bring this change. It comes into effect from this new academic session and the ISC exam of 2018 will be conducted in this changed syllabus,” Gerry Arathoon, chief executive and secretary of CISCE, said.
In 2015-2016 academic session, for every 300 student who cleared ICSE, 100 chose CBSE schools for Class XII board exam. Moreover, in the year 2014, 1,49,087 students took ICSE exam but 77,018 students opted out of the board same year resulting in only 72,069 candidates taking the ISC exam in 2016. This clearly shows the shift in the choice of students.
“All boards are following the common curriculum. We have to convince the parents and students that it’s not only CBSE, but all boards are preparing students for entrance examinations,” Mr Arathoon said.
The decision to realign the science syllabus will affect physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics syllabus of ISC, which will now replicate the CBSE syllabus of Class XI and XII.
The syllabus of humanities and commerce remains unchanged, officials said.
PTI adds:
“We have decided we will take up the issue of preparation of our students for competitive exams. We are in the process of finalising things and we will come out with study material, video lectures, specimen questions papers to crack competitive exams,” Mr. Arathoon said.
He said the CISCE have noticed that many students go to coaching centres for preparing for various competitive exams like JEE, which affect their school classes and results.
The Council is also planning to write to the government requesting them that a neutral body and not CBSE should be conducting such exams.
The Council has also dropped the idea of merging physics, chemistry and biology as one subject and history, civics and geography as another subject after schools affiliated to them complained against the proposed move. “This is the beauty of the ISC syllabus where you can choose a basketful of courses. A commerce student can choose a subject from Humanities and vice versa,” he added.
They have also asked the publishers to reduce the volume of their textbooks because it creates unnecessarily fear in the minds of students.
The CISCE has now allowed schools to use NCERT textbooks as base reference material in their classes apart from other textbooks.
