Gone are the days when Council for the Indian School Examinations (CISCE) loved to be different and enjoyed its distinction as far as curriculum was concerned. The Council which organises Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and so is popularly known as ICSE Board, has decided to undergo a major overhaul in terms of curriculum at Intermediate (+2) and Pre-Primary to Class VIII from examination year 2018 onwards. The board believes that this step would keep it in market in changing world of competitions and their patterns in changing times like this.
Under this, the Council has made modifications in the subjects of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics in its 11th and 12th classes for the ISC 2018 examinations in all it’s over 2,200 schools across India. The changes have already come into effect for current class XI students. The Council has for the first time undertaken a major exercise to redesign and redevelop a broad based curriculum for pre-primary to class VIII as well, which confirms to global standard and academic excellence of the Council so far. However, syllabi of class IX and X, and rest of the subjects of XI and XII will remain unchanged, claimed one of the top officials of the Council.
The Council said that at the ISC level, it had been following the Common Core Curriculum prescribed by the Council of Boards of School Education in India (COBSE) for Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics since the academic year 2011. The Common Core Curriculum is something which is being followed by 17 Education Boards in the country including CISCE and CBSE.
“But CBSE is also a Board which conducts a number of competitive examinations in India including of the Engineering and the Medical entrance examinations. This has nurtured a false notion in parents since some years and even in society, for that matter, that students who are part of CBSE perform better in competitive examinations like these. This is where we thought we need to remove this misconception. And synchronisation of study material at class level was the only way for this,” said Chief Executive and Secretary of CISCE Gerry Arathoon on in après conference here on Thursday.
The Council also organised a two day conference and workshop of over 130 Principals of Bihar Jharkhand region schools following CISCE syllabus, which started on Thursday itself. “The theme of this conference is Navigating Change. We have gathered here to know the view of Principals on changing teaching patterns in changing times, and to tell them to open themselves up for accepting the change,” said Arathoon.
He also hinted that the Council could think of advocating for an independent agency other than any Boards to conduct competitive exams right after +2, so that the benefit which CBSE might have, if any, could be neutralised. But he also added that it didn’t make much difference about who conducted examinations, as students under CISCE were made knowledgeable enough to crack any examination.
The Council has also launched live Ink Character Recognition (lICR) technology which the Council claims to have been used first time in the world to get faster results preparation and tabulation of marks purposes. It said that this was due to this technology that the Council was able to announce its results two weeks ahead in comparison to previous years. Arathoon said that this technology also cornered any possibility of miss-marking in terms of total numbers obtained.
Arathoon claimed that the Council has modified only the syllabi, and has not modified the values it is known for across the world. “The move is to keep ourselves ahead in competition, and distinct, like always,” said Arathoon.