Several ISC schools have decided to offer entrepreneurship as a subject to students from all three streams — commerce, humanities, and science — starting from the 2026 academic session. Many others said they were considering it.
The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), which conducts the ISC (Class XII) examinations, sent a circular to schools last week introducing entrepreneurship as an optional subject from the 2028 exam year.
That means schools that want to offer the subject from its first year would need to start it in the 2026-27 academic session.
“We had a meeting on Tuesday and decided to offer the subject to students from all three streams,” said Seema Sapru, principal of The Heritage School.
La Martiniere for Girls, Sri Sri Academy, and St
Augustine’s Day School,
Shyamnagar, are among the other schools that have decided to introduce entrepreneurship.
National Gems Higher Secondary School, however, has decided to offer the subject only to commerce students.
“The way our education system is moving, we want children to develop skills and competencies. We want them to be innovators and not just job seekers,” said Rupkatha Sarkar, principal of La Martiniere for Girls.
“One has to be an innovative risk-taker to find opportunities even in adversity — something we want our students to develop,” Sarkar added.
A number of schools expressed their expectation that the demand for the subject would be “high” among Class XI students.
“Now, students who pursue science do not just appear for medical or engineering entrance tests; they want to keep other avenues open. We wouldn’t want to limittheir choices,” said Gargi Banerjee, principal, Sri SriAcademy.
The authorities of St Thomas’ Girls School Kidderpore, Calcutta Girls’ High School, and Julien Day Group of Schools said they were considering offering the subject not just to commerce students but also those from science and humanities.
Schools are working out the subject combinations they would like to offer.
The council has changed the nomenclature of commerce to business studies. Till the 2026 examination year, business studies and commerce were offered as two different subjects.
“Many students who would find math difficult in the commerce stream would opt for business studies. We would have to explain the changes to the parents,” said Terence John, director ofeducation and development at the Julien Day Group of Schools.
“Admission forms for Class XI have gone out. We have already mentioned the subject combinations to the parents. We will have to counsel parents and students again,” said John.
Several schools have asked teachers to study the syllabus before the subject is introduced.
“This new subject is interesting. But before introducing it, we have to see whether parents are in line withit and our infrastructure can deal with it,” said RachelElias, the principal of St Thomas’ Girls’ School Kidderpore.
Principals agree that the subject offers new prospects.
“Entrepreneurship is the future, and there will be a demand,” said Keya Sinha, the academic director at National Gems.
Rodney Borneo, theprincipal of St Augustine’s Day School Shyamnagar, said he expected the subject to help students in diversefields.