Mita Mukherjee

The Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) will send the question papers of the cancelled 2021 ICSE and ISC examinations to all schools, the CISCE  said.

 In a letter written to the heads of all schools presenting candidates for the ICSE and ISC 2021, Gerry Arathoon, secretary and chief executive of CISCE said the “question papers are for internal use only and may be utilized accordingly.”

After receiving the letter on Monday, principals of several schools said the question papers of the two cancelled examinations will be helpful for students who will appear in the board exams next year. The students can solve the questions and understand the question pattern and difficulty level of the paper.   

The questions will be also helpful for the 2021 ICSE and ISC batches of students as they will get an idea about the type of questions that they would have had to solve if the exams had not been cancelled.

The council had cancelled the 2021 ICSE (Class X) examinations in view of the “worsening” Covid-19 pandemic in the country on April 20.

The cancellation of the ISC examinations of the current year was announced on June 1 because of the pandemic.

The council has announced the formula for evaluating the students.

The CISCE had completed the process of preparing the question papers by the time the examinations were cancelled, the principal of an ICSE school said.

The ICSE and the ISC are usually held in February-March.

The CISCE would normally send the ICSE and ISC question papers to the examination conveners of the respective regions before the examinations. But the council has said in the letter the question papers will be sent directly to the schools.

According to the CISCE letter, “The CISCE is in the process of packing and dispatching the same to you shortly. However, instead of the usual practice of sending them to the Convener in your region, they will be sent to your School Centre directly….,” the letter read.

“ For the upcoming ICSE & ISC year 2021 improvement & Compartmental Examinations scheduled to be held later, a fresh set of Question Papers will be sent to the schools, prior to the commencement of the said examinations,” according to the letter.