The ICSE council has reduced the syllabuses of English and other Indian languages for ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) 2022 exams.

The syllabus restructuring will not be limited to the languages. “...the CISCE has initiated the process of syllabus review for various subjects at the ICSE and ISC levels specifically for Classes X and XII, for the Examination Year 2022, to identify portions of the syllabus which may be reduced, without compromising on the quality of content,” said Gerry Arathoon, chief executive and secretary, Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), said in a circular to heads of affiliated schools on Friday.

The council cancelled the ICSE and the ISC 2021 exams because of the pandemic.

Schools have been shut since March last year as a precuation against Covid and classes are being held online.

Schools across the country “continue to struggle to cope with the disruption in educational activities brought about due to extended lockdowns...,” Friday’s circular said.

Aside from the loss of instructional hours during the past year, “teaching-learning processes have also been impacted due to the... alternate modes of syllabus transaction that needed to be adopted, due to the closure of schools”.

Principals have been asked to intimate those concerned.

For example, in ICSE English Paper 2 (Literature), the reduced syllabus for Class X is Act III, IV and V of Merchant of Venice, four poems and four short stories.

In ISC English Paper 2 (Literature), the Class XII syllabus is Act III, IV and V of The Tempest, five short stories and five poems.

Several English teachers said that the division can be watertight for prose and poetry but not for Shakespeare’s plays. “The plays require students to understand them as a whole and it is difficult to limit it to a few acts,” said a teacher.

But principals said that given the current pandemic situation, the reduction would lessen the pressure.

“No one knows how things will pan out in the next six months. There will be no pressure to complete the syllabus and instead, we have asked teachers to focus on language building skills,” said a principal.

The circular to principals said that the CISCE “is also carrying out syllabus reduction in several other subjects at the ICSE and ISC levels, in consultation with its subject experts”.

In February this year, the Bengal government had allowed schools to reopen and some of them conducted onsite pre-boards exams but after a fresh surge of infections, schools had to shut down.

The council in the circular has said that there is uncertainty about when schools across the country will be able to return to normality.

“In the eventuality of the need for further reduction in the syllabus, it is imperative that the concerned subject teachers transact the syllabus strictly according to the sequence of topics given in the syllabus. This will ensure that all CISCE affiliated schools are broadly teaching the same topics at any given point of time as well as facilitate subsequent reduction in syllabus, if required,” the circular said.