Mita Mukherjee

The Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) decided to do away with the practice of announcing merit list of toppers of ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) examinations to avoid “unwanted competition” among students, Joseph Emmanuel the new chief executive and secretary of the CISCE said on Monday.

The CISCE declared the 2024 ICSE and ISC results on Monday but no merit list was announced.

In ICSE the all- India pass percentage is 99.47 per cent this time and in ISC, 98.19 per cent students cleared the test this year. The pass percentage in both the exams is marginally higher this time than last year.

“We have decided to stop announcing the merit list of toppers in ICSE and ISC board exams. Our decision aims to discourage unwanted competition among students. We want our students to grow collectively. The celebrity status that students get is not necessary. This also creates a lot of stress among students. Scrapping the practice of announcing merit lists, will reduce the unwanted academic pressure among students during announcement of results. The merit list system does not match the kind of approach we follow in the council. It is difficult to differentiate the skill of students if they score one or two marks less or more than others,” Emmanuel told EducationWorld.      

In ICSE 2,43,617 and in ISC 99,901 candidates appeared this year. This year, the chemistry and psychology papers of ISC had to be postponed at the last moment because of some unavoidable reasons and the tests were held later.

Emmanuel said the council will be in a position to elaborate on the performance of students in each subject after the completion of the subject-wise analysis of the results. “The council  ensures complete accuracy and perfection in the evaluation process,” said Emmanuel.

The 2024 results show that in ISC, the Southern region has the highest pass percentage – 99.53 per cent followed by the Western region having a pass percentage of 99.32 per cent. The pass percentage in North is 98.01 per cent and 97.84 in East.

In ICSE the western region has the highest pass percentage –99.91 per cent followed by the southern region 99.88 per cent. The pass percentage in the north which is in the third position is 99.31 per cent and the pass percentage in east is 99.24 per cent.

The Western region of India has the highest number of girl candidates in ISC and in ICSE the highest number of girls had appeared, Emmanuel said. The ICSE 2024 exams were held  from February 21 to March 28. The ISC 2024 exams were conducted from February 12 to April 4.

Terence Ireland, principal of St. James’ School in Kolkata said many students of his institution who had expected to score more than 95 per cent in math, physics and chemistry have obtained in the 80s.

“Some of our boys who are very meritorious will find it difficult to manage seats in the reputable institutions because of scoring below 90 per cent marks in these subjects. But, our students of humanities and commerce streams have performed extremely well. Many of our students have scored 100 in subjects like political science and history.  We are very happy with their excellent results,” Ireland told EducationWorld.

Reverend Rodney Borneo, principal of St. Augustine’s Day School Shyamnagar in North 24 Parganas, however, said that the average performance of their students is above 80 per cent and the scores in the science subjects are not low as many schools are saying. But like many other schools several students have scored above 95 per cent in history and political science.

As for the scrapping of the practice of merit lists, there were mixed reactions from the schools. Ireland welcomed the decision as he said this has been done in students’ interest. “I am happy also because the merit list of toppers creates unnecessary competition between schools,” Ireland said.

Sujoy Biswas of Ram Mohan Mission High School said : “ The council has never encouraged mentioning divisions, percentage and total marks of students in mark sheets. The decision to do away with the merit list is good as this will reduce students’ stress during the results,” Biswas told EducationWorld.    

Also read: ICSE council plans two levels of mathematics for Class X