The overall performance of students in ICSE (Class X) has been better compared with how many of them had fared in the semester 1 exams, said heads of several schools. Factors such as resumption of in-person classes, a more traditional pattern of exams in semester 2 and a push from teachers to address the learning gaps after the semester 1 results were published could be some of the reasons for the better performance, school heads said.
The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) published the ICSE results on Sunday evening.
“The overall results of students are better compared with their performance in semester 1. Between semester 1 and 2, students came to school and also wrote the pre-board exams on the campus, which helped them be better prepared,” said Seema Sapru, principal of The Heritage School.
The semester 2 exams were held in April and May and the semester 1 tests were held in November and December.
The 2022 ICSE batch was the first that wrote all the papers since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. In 2020, some of the ICSE papers had to be cancelled because of the lockdown. No exam could be held in 2021 because of an uncontrolled surge in Covid cases.
For the 2022 batch, the council introduced two semesters, a first in the history of the ICSE exams.“In spite of online teaching and online learning and appearing for examinations in the offline mode, students have done very well,” said Gerry Arathoon, chief executive and secretary of the CISCE.
In West Bengal, where 40,736 students appeared in the exams from 415 schools, the pass percentage is 99.98.
The pass percentage of boys in the state is 99.98 and that of girls 99.97.The results of semester 1 were published on February 7 and the students got almost three months to prepare for the semester 2 tests.
The council has not separately published the results of semester 2. In the computation of the ICSE results, equal weightage was given to the semester 1 and 2 scores, the council said.
“Even students who are academically not that strong and had not done that well in semester 1 have remarkably improved their scores in the overall result. In fact, there was a constant push from teachers to make up for their weak areas and that helped,” said Sujoy Biswas, principal of Rammohan Mission High School.
Of the 171 students of the school who appeared in the exams, 67 have scored above 90. At The Heritage School, 100 of the 182 examinees have scored above 90.
At La Martiniere for Boys, 121 of the 232 students have scored above 90.At Julien Day School Kalyani, 76 of the 153 students have scored above 90. At MP Birla Foundation Higher Secondary School, 71 of the 213 examinees have scored above 90.“A number of students scored just below 90 per cent in semester 1. The teachers had worked on them and they managed to score above 90 (in the overall results),” said Terence John, principal of Julien Day School Kalyani.
"Top performers as well as academically weak students, both categories have seen their marks rise. The overall results also included the project marks," said Jessica Gomes Surana, principal of Loreto Convent Entally.
The questions in semester 1 were all multiple choice types, which was new for students as well as teachers.
Students had not attended in-person classes for almost two years because of the pandemic and had appeared for online exams before appearing for the in-person semester 1 test.
It was in February when schools reopened for in-person classes and most schools conducted pre-boards on campus.
"By the time the students appeared for the semester 2 exams, there was… less uncertainty. Students were more confident," said Ranjan Mitter, principal of Future Foundation School.
