Indian Certificate of Secondary Education

The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and the Indian School Certificate (ISC) are two certificates awarded upon satisfactory result in an examination conducted by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, a private board designed to provide an examination in a course of general education, in accordance with the recommendations of the New Education Policy 2020 (India), through the medium of English. The examination allows secure suitable representations of responsible schools (which are affiliated to it) in their states or territories.
The ICSE and ISC are known for its comprehensive syllabus and primary focus on the English language and variety of subjects that it offers, which involve language, arts, commerce and science. The ICSE and ISC are taught in English only.
The ICSE Examination is a school examination and the standard of the examination pre-supposes a school course of ten years duration (Classes I-X).
The ISC Examination is a school examination and the standard of the examination pre-supposes a school course of two years duration (Classes XI-XII)
Private candidates are not permitted to appear for the examination.
The beginning of the academic year in Schools affiliated to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) shall be from the middle of March (for Grades 1 to 10 and 12) and the first week of June (for Grade 11) each year.
Candidates appearing for the ICSE must write examinations in at least six or at most eight subjects. Of these, five subjects will be included in their final grade — out of these five, one will compulsorily be English, even if it is the subject in which the student has scored the lowest marks. There are three groups of subjects.
Section A
Section B
While ICSE offers each of these subjects to students, the school affiliated to CISCE may or may not be offering all the subjects listed. Depending on the school's resources, only a few subjects may be available to students.
In addition to the subjects listed above ICSE mandates an extra-curricular development to be displayed by students. This is achieved through a scheme called Socially Useful Productive Work & Community Service, commonly referred to as SUPW, introduced in 1978.
In accordance to SUPW, candidates will be required to select one main craft and one subsidiary service or one main service and one subsidiary craft per year of preparation for the examination. The craft may be aligned with their studies. For example a candidate who has selected Art may submit pottery as their craft.
In Group I and Group II subjects, candidates write an 80 mark paper on the day of the examination which constitutes the external examination portion of their marks. Another 20 marks constitute the internal assessment, which is awarded based on projects, practical files or oral/aural assessments.
Thus the split between external and internal assessments is 80% and 20% respectively.
For Group III subjects, candidates write a 100 mark paper on the day of the examination, which comprises the external examination portion of their marks. Another 100 marks comprise the internal assessment which is awarded based on projects or practical files.
To obtain marks out of 100, both external examination and internal assessment marks are added and the average is calculated and reported as final marks.
This the split between external and internal assessments is 50%.
The pass marks for each subject is 33%.
The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Examination is conducted once a year, and usually spans 1 to 1.25 month. The registrations for supplementary examination and improvement examination are opened within a month after declaration of results of the main exam.
In the one-month interval of the exams, only one examination is conducted per day, often leaving gaps in between each exam, giving candidates a large gap between their exams.
Each exam normally spans 2 hours, with the exception of the following exams which have a duration of 3 hours:
Each exam usually has only one paper, with the exception of the following papers:
Candidates appearing for the ISC must write examinations in at least five or at most six subjects. Of these, four subjects will be included in their final grade — out of these four, one will compulsorily be English, even if it is the subject in which the student has scored the lowest marks.
While ISC offers each of these subjects to students, the school affiliated to CISCE may or may not be offering all the subjects listed. Depending on the school's resources, only a few subjects may be available to students.
In addition to the subjects listed above ISC mandates an extra-curricular development to be displayed by students. This is achieved through a scheme called Socially Useful Productive Work & Community Service, commonly referred to as SUPW, introduced in 1978.
In accordance to SUPW, candidates will be required to select one main craft and one subsidiary service or one main service and one subsidiary craft per year of preparation for the examination. The craft may be aligned with their studies. For example a candidate who has selected Art may submit pottery as their craft
There are some subjects, which have 80 marks theory paper (Board Examination), along with 20 marks of internal assessments conducted by school (projects, exams, viva). Thus the split between external and internal assessments is 80% and 20% respectively.
However, there are few subjects which have 70 marks theory paper (Board Examination). Those subjects have a 30 mark internal assessment conducted by school (projects, practical, exam, viva). Thus, the split for them between external and internal assessments is 70% and 30% respectively.
To obtain marks out of 100, both external examination and internal assessment marks are added and the average is calculated and reported as final marks.
The pass marks for each subject is 33%.
The Indian School Certificate is conducted once a year, and usually spans 1.5 to 2.5 month. The registrations for supplementary examination and improvement examination are opened within a month after declaration of results of the main exam.
In the 1.5-2.5 month interval of the exams, there are leaving gaps in between each exam, giving candidates a large gap between their exams.
Each exam spans a duration of 3 hours writing time.
All candidates who appear for the ICSE and ISC Main Examination, are eligible to take the Improvement Examination conducted on the same year of Examination.
Candidates are allowed to take the improvement examination for any two subjects they have enrolled themselves in.
The CISCE will award to every candidate that sits for the necessary subjects, attaining an aggregate of their 5 best subjects in ICSE and 4 best subjects in ISC of above 33% and a grade of D or above in their SUPW.
In 2013, a 20-year-old Indian student studying in the US, Debarghya Das, claimed in his personal blog to have downloaded the ICSE scores for over 100,000 students by scraping. His analysis of the data showed interesting patterns in the marking system, suggesting that the marks were rounded off with no student getting under 33 marks out of a possible 100. The reason for this was reportedly attributed to moderation; a practice also followed by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), it involved tweaking candidates' marks to account for paper variances.