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ICSE board revamping syllabus and helping them prepare students for competitive exams in a bid to retain them
The CICSE has taken a number of steps to prevent students from shifting to CBSE. It includes revising syllabus, providing assistance in preparing for competitive exams, revising textbook sizes. Also they are writing to the govt to request for a neutral authority to hold competitive exams.
Call it survival tactics or merely market dynamics, the Council for Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) is revamping its syllabus in addition to preparing pupils for competitive exams to prevent students from shifting to the Central Board of Education Board (CBSE).
“We have decided we will take up the issue of preparation of our students for competitive exams. We are in the process of finalizing 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 pointed out that the student’s school classes and results are affected as they go to coaching centers for preparing for various competitive exams like JEE.
“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 (ICSE) Council will also write to the government requesting them to ensure that a neutral body and not CBSE should be conducting such exams due to the erroneous perception being built in the minds of parents.
The restructuring exercise taken up recently will ensure that the syllabus of both boards will be the same in the 4 subjects of mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics as they have realigned ISC syllabus with competitive exams from the ISC 2018 exam,
“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.
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 % qualified.
The authorities have also asked the publishers to reduce the volume of textbooks as it creates unnecessarily fear in the minds of students. In fact, to make matters easier the CISCE has now allowed schools to use NCERT textbooks as base reference material in their classes apart from other recommended textbooks.