Next year’s ISC (Class XII) exams will start on February 13 and ICSE (Class X) exams on February 27.
The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) published the schedule for both exams on Thursday.
The ISC and ICSE exams both will start with English language (English- Paper 1). The ISC exams will end with environmental science on March 31 and the ICSE exams with biology on March 29.
Each day’s ISC test, except for the art papers, will start at 2pm. Each day’s ICSE test, except for the art papers, will start at 11am.
The art papers for both ICSE and ISC will start at 9am.
The council also announced that the results would be issued “through the Conveners to the Heads of Schools in the month of May 2023”.
“The council is trying to go back to the schedule it used to follow before the pandemic,” a school principal said.
After 2019, the last year before the onset of the Covid pandemic, this is the first time the council will conduct fulllength exams for the students of both Class X and Class XII.
In 2020, the test in some of the papers could not be held because of the Covid-induced lockdown. The board exams were not held in 2021.
For the batch of 2022, the council introduced a two phase examination. The first phase was held in November and December and the second in April, May and June.
The council had earlier announced that next year it would go back to the pre-pandemic system of conducting one full-length exam.
The council had announced at a meeting of school heads in Thiruvanthapuram last month that the ISC exams were expected to be held from the second or third week of February and the ICSE exams from the last week of February.
Many schools have already planned their calendar and the pre-board exam schedule for these two classes.
Schools will try to finish their board practicals for the ISC exams by at least the first week of February, some school heads said.
“We will plan the ISC practicals after the rehearsal exams are over. We will try to finish the practicals by the first week of February, so the students have some time before they start the theory papers for the board exam,” said Terence Ireland, principal of St James’ School.
Some schools have scheduled their pre-board exams in December and the rest in January. “We will coordinate with the visiting examiners for the practical exams after we finish the rehearsal exams. That will keep the children more relaxed,” said Terence John, principal of Julien Day School, Kalyani.
The last date for sending the marks of the ISC practicals to the council is February 28. “The announcement of the board exam dates will make it easier for us to plan the annual examinations of the other senior classes,” said Sujoy Biswas, principal of Rammohan Mission High School.
