The ICSE council has cancelled its 2021 Class XII (ISC) board exams, its chief executive and secretary Gerry Arathoon said on Tuesday evening.

The council said in a media release that after the declaration of the ISC results, if some students are not satisfied with the marks awarded to them, it will give an “option to such candidates to write the ISC (Class XII) Year 2021 Examination at a later date, when the situation is conducive to conduct the same”.

Arathoon said: “We have cancelled the ISC (Class XII) exams. We took the decision because of the pandemic and though the number of fresh infections is on the decline in some places, it is still high in many states.”

Arathoon said that the results would be based on the internal assessments conducted at the schools.

“We have no other marks. The results will be based on the internal assessments of two years and we have asked schools to submit the marks. Once the data are submitted, experts will work on it and decide what the procedure would be,” he added.

On May 27, the council had asked schools to submit the marks of Classes XI and XII for ISC candidates of Year 2021 by June 7.

The decision to call off the exams brings closure to students who had been concerned about the uncertainty over the exams because their college admissions and academic career depend on when the Class XII results are announced.

But a section of students are also feeling that it might not give them a level playing field.

The principal of an ISC school said: “The academically strong students who are well prepared want to write the exams because it is a true reflection of their marks.”

The ICSE council (the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations or CISCE) is yet to announce when it would publish the results of the Classes X and XII exams. The Class X exams were cancelled earlier.

Hundreds of Class XII examinees have already got offer letters from foreign universities and are waiting for their results.

“All these (foreign admissions, for example) will be taken into consideration. We are waiting for school principals to send us the data of Classes XI and XII as soon as possible to help us tabulate. Most schools have a digital record and do not have to do it manually so we expect schools to submit the data fast,” Arathoon said.

In the media release, the ICSE council said: “In view of the present situation of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, the CISCE has decided to cancel the ISC (Class XII) Year 2021 Examination. The safety, health and well-being of our students, teaching faculty and all stakeholders is our topmost priority and of paramount interest.”

It added: “The results will be processed on a mechanism which will also include the internal examinations conducted by the schools. The schools will be informed in due course of time of this mechanism.”

Several school heads said that students and their parents would want to know how the marks would be calculated, now that the board exams have been cancelled.

“Especially for students who have not yet secured college admission, they would want to know how the council will calculate their marks and what the criteria will be,” a principal said.

State boards

The Bengal government has yet to take a decision on the Classes X and XII exams that are conducted by the state boards.

Before the cancellation announcements came from Delhi on Tuesday evening, the state boards had announced a joint news conference on Wednesday where the schedules of the forthcoming HS and Madhyamik (Class X) exams are supposed to be announced.