The Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) has clarified on Friday that classes IX and XI annual exams would be held on council’s common question papers to reduce students’ anxiety and stress and help them perform better in the “actual board examinations”.

The clarification aims to allay apprehensions among a section of teachers and parents that a centralised examination at the end of classes IX and XI will be a burden on students, a principal of an ICSE school in Calcutta said.

In the circular issued to heads of all ICSE and ISC schools, the CISCE clarified that the classes IX and XI annual examinations to be held in February-March next year were “not board examinations”.

According to the circular, the CISCE had observed that there were subjects in which students scored less in the ICSE and ISC examinations. They also tend to fail in those subjects. The council will be setting the classes IX and XI question papers only in those subjects so that students get exposed to “board-like questions”.

“As per the Council’s observation, the subjects selected for setting the Classes IX and XI question papers are those in which candidates often tend to lose marks /fail during the Board examination. This exercise will be of immense benefit to the students, as it will provide them with an exposure to Board–like Question Papers. This exposure will lead to the reduction of anxiety and stress during the actual board examination and thereby help them to their full potential,” the circular read.

The intention of testing the students on question papers set by the council in classes IX and XI annual examinations is to familiarise them with the “correct question pattern, the format and the type of questions” they would be required to answer in the board exam. This would reduce the stress while answering the questions in the board examinations.

Gerry Arathoon, secretary and chief executive of CISCE, said the council had reiterated the objectives of the new system to the schools to ensure there was no confusion among students and parents about the benefits.

“The CISCE is a student-friendly board. The new system has been introduced with an intention to help students perform better. There should not be any confusion among the students and parents about the objectives of the new system,” Arathoon told Metro on Saturday.

In the circular, the council has clarified to the school heads that the promotion from classes IX to X and from XI to XII will have to be decided on the “cumulative average” marks scored by the students in the terminal examinations and unit tests held internally by the schools throughout the year.

Though the council would set the questions of the annual examinations, the individual schools would evaluate the answer scripts and prepare the results. The council had announced last year that students in classes IX and XI in ICSE/ISC schools would be tested on common question papers, like in board tests, in all core subjects in the their annual examinations from this year.

The decision primarily aimed at ensuring that all the 2,100-odd schools affiliated to the council teach only the prescribed syllabus for a particular class. The council had received complaints that several schools taught a large portion of the class IX syllabus in class VIII and topics from the class X syllabus in class IX. Similarly, class XI students in many schools are taught topics from class XII.

Council rules state that the schools must cover all topics prescribed in each subject for every class and give weightage to all chapters and units. But many schools allegedly skipped certain topics in classes VIII, IX and XI so they could start teaching topics from the subsequent classes in advance.

The students who are now in classes IX and XI will be the first batch to be tested under the new system. Their annual exams are scheduled for February-March next year. The students in the Darjeeling hills will write their annual exams in November.