The Council of the Indian School Certificate Examination has brought relief to thousands of Class X and XII students who will answer their ICSE and ISC board exams in 2015.
ICSE and ISC examinees will not have to fill up the complicated optical-mark reader (OMR) sheets from 2015.
The decision was announced at the recently concluded All-India ICSE conference held in New Delhi between November 26 and 28.
All principals of ICSE schools from the state attended the conference.
The decision was prompted after complaints from evaluators poured in. The Council decided to do away with the system that was introduced in 2014 apparently for better screening, calculation and confidentiality. But, after experiencing it in 2014, evaluators across the country unanimously said it was strenuous for students.
Earlier this year, each answer script had a detachable OMR sheet for the examinee to write his/her name and index number.
According to principals, it is a boon for students who found it really difficult to fill up the OMR sheets.
“It is a good move because the OMR had created many problems. Students are not used to filling up such sheets and so they tend to make mistakes. It will be a big relief for them as they can concentrate on their papers. Invigilators at exam venues had to be extra cautious last time to prevent students from committing any mistake,” said Indrani Singh, principal of ADLS Sunshine School, an ICSE-affiliated school in Jamshedpur.
This apart, the Council has also decided to prune the Hindi syllabus both for ICSE and ISC from 2017 but no specific announcements have been made to that effect. Also, no specific reasons have been cited for pruning the Hindi syllabus.
However, Council officials at the conference said that they would lessen the number of chapters for those examinees who will appear in 2017.
At present, ISC students have 13 stories and 15 poems in their syllabus. The prescribed Hindi books for plus two are Katha Surbhi (prose), Kavya Tarang (poetry) and Nirmala, a novel by Munshi Premchand. Class X students study 15 chapters each from Kavya Chandrika (collection of poems) and Gadya Sankalan (prose selections).
The CISCE also decided to organise subject-wise training programme in all cities. So far, it was restricted to the metros.
There is welcome news for teachers too. The CISCE has announced that they were planning to give medical facilities to retired teachers who have worked in ICSE schools.
