The Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations will randomly select schools to re-examine the answer scripts of classes IX and XI to verify whether the students have been tested on the questions sent by council.

The council conducts the ICSE exams for students of Class X and ISC for those of Class XII. As for classes IX and XI, the council from this year is sending the question papers but the answer scripts will be assessed by the respective schools.

The council has received verbal complaints that some schools are including a few questions of their own in the class IX and XI exams, in violation of rules.

“The allegation is that when a school finds that the paper sent by the council has questions on chapters not taught in class, teachers are telling the examinees to ignore those questions and answer the ones set by the school. Teachers are writing the new questions on the board,” the principal of an ISC school in the city said.

The annual exams for classes IX and XI started on February 10.

Gerry Arathoon, the chief executive and secretary of the council, said he was aware about the alleged “irregularity” but the authorities had not yet received any “official” complaint.

“Every school will have to conduct the annual tests of classes IX and XI using the questions provided by the council. But we have heard that some schools have provided separate questions to their students,” Arathoon told Metro.

“We will randomly select schools and re-examine the answer scripts. That will help us verify whether the schools held the tests on the basis of the common question papers supplied by the council.”

The council, he said, will take “appropriate action” against the schools if the re-check of answer scripts shows that the students have been tested on the questions not included in the common question papers.

“The council had two years ago announced its decision to conduct the Class IX and Class XI tests on common questions. The schools have got enough time to complete the syllabus,” said Arathoon.

He did not explain the nature of the punitive action to be taken against errant schools.

The council has decided to test Class IX and Class XI students on common questions to ensure that all schools complete the syllabi in time.

The council had found in the previous years that some schools would allegedly not complete the syllabi and would test the students on the portion of the curricula taught in class.