KOLKATA: Selection exams or pre-board exams in CISCE schools may not happen in November as they used to be. Students might also have to forego the long study leave that they would get after the selection exams were over in December before the winter break. City schools held meetings with teachers on Thursday to discuss the first semester time table that the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations announced on Wednesday.
For ICSE students, the exam will be 22-day long, while for ISC students, it will be a month-long affair. Schools said that traditionally the whole of November was utilised for completion of syllabus but this time, the semester exam would block those days. Moreover, since nothing from the second semester syllabus can be taught before the completion of the first semester exam, teaching for this will start only for a few days prior to the winter holidays and then in January. Most schools have decided that there would be no study leave this time in January and February since the second semester syllabus will be completed then and another round of selection exams will also have to be held as pre-semester exam for second semester.
“We are comfortable with the first part of the syllabus for the first semester but the second part will be a challenge. Our selection exams cannot happen in December and we will not be closing for study leave before the winter break for board-year students,” said Jessica Gomes Surana, principal of Loreto Convent Entally.
A meeting with subject co-ordinators was held by acting principal of La Martiniere for Boys, John Stephen, on Thursday. “We have cancelled our original November selection exams and are treating our half-yearly exams, that will start on September 16, as pre-semester one for the November first semester exam. We will hold another pre-semester exam before second semester in March-April. Students cannot be given long study leave like earlier,” he said.
“We have held meetings with teachers and found that apart from cancellation of study leave time and negotiations with the original schedule of pre-boards, nothing much is required,” said Ian Myers, principal of Frank Anthony Public School.
