– Mita Mukherjee

The 2026 ICSE (Class X ) examination will start on February 17 and the ISC (Class XII) examination on February 12, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) announced on Thursday.

The ISC will start with psychology and ICSE with English language paper. The Class X board examination will end on March 30 and the ISC on April 6.

“About 2.6 Lakh candidates will appear for the ICSE (Class X) examination, while about 1.5 Lakh candidates are set to take the ISC (Class XII) examination this year, marking yet another milestone in CISCE’s consistent efforts to conduct transparent, student-centric, and globally benchmarked assessments,” Joseph Emmanuel, chief executive and secretary of CISCE said announcing the time-table.

“The release of the examination schedule is more than a calendar event – it is a moment of focus, anticipation, and aspiration for every learner. At CISCE, we have designed the timetable to balance academic rigour with student wellbeing, ensuring that preparation time translates into performance, not pressure.”

The results of both examinations will be declared in April -May, the council said in the announcement to heads released to schools.

The Council has said that approximately 40 percent weightage will be given to analytical and application-based questions in ICSE and ISC 2026. Sample questions of the 2026 examinations have been released by the council.

“In continuance of our efforts to foster strong teaching-learning practices that align with the Imperatives of the National Education Policy 2020 (NEO), CISCE is releasing the specimen question papers and answer keys in select subjects for ICSE 2026, ISC Year 2026…….examinations ……..the weightage ascribed to the questions assessing competencies such as application, analysis, interpretation and evaluation is approximately 40 percent for the year 2026 examination,” the Council said in a circular to school heads in July.

The CISCE ascribed 25 percent weightage to analytical and higher order thinking questions in ICSE and in 2025 exams. The council earlier said that the share of analytical questions would be gradually increased.

Teachers of a number of schools said all possible steps are being taken to enable students to tackle the increased number of analytical and higher order thinking questions. The announcement of the exam schedule brought relief to students as they were eagerly waiting to make the final plans to prepare for the exams.

Like previous years, the council has clarified in detail about the instructions examinees need to follow in the exam hall during the examinations and the consequences students can face for adopting unfair means in the examination hall.

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