The ICSE and ISC semester 1 examinations will be conducted in the offline mode and in the candidates’ “respective schools,” the ICSE council said in a circular late on Friday.
The ICSE (Class X) semester 1 exams are to start on November 29 and the ISC (Class XII) semester 1 exams on November 22, the council announced. Each day’s ICSE test will start at 11am and each day’s ISC test at 2pm.
The ICSE exams will continue till December 16 and the ISC exams till December 20.
“The exam will be in the MCQ (multiple-choice questions) pattern. The only change is the semester 1 exam will be held offline and not online,” Gerry Arathoon, the chief executive and secretary of the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), told Metro.
The council had earlier announced that the semester 1 exams would be held online.
The CISCE in the circular addressed to school heads said they had received emails from heads, parents and students, who expressed their apprehension in the event of the semester 1 exams being held online.
“The CISCE has been in receipt of numerous emails from Heads of Schools, parents and students, who had expressed their difficulties and apprehension if the Semester 1 Examinations were to be held Online. Some of the major concerns expressed were 1. Non-availability of devices 2. Irregular power supply 3 Network and Bandwidth problems,” states the circular, which has been uploaded on the council’s website.
“The CISCE… after much deliberation has… decided to conduct the ICSE & ISC Semester 1 Examinations in the Offline mode. These examinations will be conducted in the candidates’ respective Schools. All candidates will be required to report to their school, as per the scheduled examination dates,” reads the circular.
According to the revised timetable, the ICSE exams will start with English language (English Paper 1) and the ISC exams with Literature in English (English Paper 2).
The council had on Tuesday announced the postponement of the ICSE and ISC semester 1 examinations for “reasons beyond our control”.
Students and parents had been waiting for the fresh dates and the timetable.
In another circular addressed to school heads on Tuesday, the council had cancelled the training programmes for the proctors/buffer proctors/super proctors/buffer super proctors/IT support executives.
Last week, the CBSE had announced that the Class X and XII exams would be held in school.
The timetable was published this week.
CBSE schools have started drawing plans for conducting on-campus exams. ICSE and ISC schools have to start the process now.
The schools have been closed since March 2020 because of the Covid pandemic. They had briefly opened in February this year.
