'Will prepare ICSE board students for competitive exams'

By revamping the syllabus and preparing students for competitive exams, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) is making sure that the students do not shift to CBSE boards.
"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," Gerry Arathoon, chief executive officer (CEO) and secretary of the Council said.
He said they have noticed that many students go to coaching centres for preparing for various competitive exams like JEE, which effect their school classes and results.

"Unfortunately there is a perception and a mindset among parents and students that CBSE board is their answer for competitive exams, because they are the ones who conduct many such exams. The best of our students from elite schools shift to CBSE board because of this reason," Arathoon said.
The Council is also planning to write to the government requesting them that a neutral body and not CBSE should be conducting such exams.
From the ISC 2018 exam, he said the syllabus of both boards in the four subjects of mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics will now be same as they have realigned ISC syllabus with competitive exams.

"We are not following the CBSE syllabus, but the common core curriculum as prescribed by the Council of Boards of School Education in India," the official said.

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.
Among the 36,690 ISC students from the Science stream, about 25,700 had appeared for IIT JEE Mains exam and out of them, 21.6 per cent qualified.
"This is the beauty of the ISC syllabus where you can choose a basket full 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.
CISCE has now allowed schools to use NCERT textbooks as base reference material in their classes apart from other textbooks.