Changes in ISC 2016 ICSE, ISC syllabus to mirror CBSE syllabus from 2018

New Delhi: The CISCE (Council for Indian School Certificate Examination) recently conducted its 58th Annual General Meeting where changes in syllabus, infrastructure and training methods were discussed. It has been decided that from 2018, the syllabus of the Indian Certificate for School Education (ICSE) and the Indian School Certificate (ISC) will be aligned to the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) syllabi.

The modifications that will be introduced are as follows:

• Units covered in the ISC (Class XII) syllabus will be aligned with the CBSE syllabus,
• Question papers for Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology for Classes IX, X and XII will be set on the CBSE pattern, and
• ICSE (Class X) syllabus for Mathematics, Physics, Geography, and History & Civics will also be reviewed.

Gerry Arathoon, Chief Executive and Secretary of the CISCE, said, “Modification in syllabus has been done to facilitate a progressively upgrade subject knowledge and understating in students in a phased manner.”

Now, ICSE and ISC question papers will have questions to access recall, understanding, application, analysis and evaluation skills of students. Weightage of marks for each unit of a subject will be based on its content and significance.

Changes have been announced for ISC 2016 board examination too. Next year, subjects with practicals will be considered as elective ones. Instead of the standard evaluation pattern – which gave 50% weightage to theory and 50% to practical exam; a new exam pattern will be followed in which theory will have a weightage of 70% and practical will have a weightage of just 30%.

This year, about 1.5 lakh students appeared for Class X board exams through ICSE board while 71,000 students appeared for Class XII board exams through ISC board across India.