The ICSE council will conduct a virtual meeting with principals on Monday to discuss an earlier circular regarding submission of the average marks of Classes IX and X and to address the concern of schools and clarify doubts, if any.

“In order to address schools’ concerns, clarify doubts, check the status of schools in the states of West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim and to get a direct feedback from our heads of schools, the CISCE is organising a virtual meeting,” said Gerry Arathoon, chief executive and secretary of the

Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) in a circular addressed to heads of schools presenting candidates for the ICSE 2021 examination in these states.

The council has cancelled the ICSE (Class X) board exam and in a circular on April 29 asked affiliated schools for the “average marks of Classes IX and X to be forwarded to the CISCE” through the Careers portal.

The council said in the circular that the country is going through a crisis because of the “ravaging nature of the Second Wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“Each state in the country is affected in varying degrees, some worse than the others.”

The circular said the CISCE had “committed to a fair and unbiased criterion for the preparation of the ICSE Year 2021 Examination results, always keepingthe best interest of thecandidates and schools in mind.”

Several schools have started the process of collating data and are concerned about the students who appeared in the pre-board examination conducted in the school and did not fare as well as their peers.

“It could be unfair for students who made the effort to come to school for the exams and they should not be treated on a par with those who appeared in the online exams,” said a principal of an ICSE school.

Several schools had thought of communicating this to the council and are now hoping to raise the concern during the meeting on Monday.

“While calculating the marks the council should take into account that some students wrote exams in school and not from home,” said another principal.

Several schools in Calcutta conducted the examination on their campuses to prepare students for an in-person board examination that was scheduled to be held from May 4.

Since schools had been closed since March 2020 because of Covid, students attended online classes and appeared for exams from home.

After the government allowed schools to reopen on February 12, some institutions decided to conduct the examination on campus and some of them gave students the option to choose between online and in-person exams.