Indian Certificate of Secondary Education

The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) is a certificate awarded upon satisfactory result in an examination conducted by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, a private board designed to provide an examination in a course of general education, in accordance with the recommendations of the New Education Policy 2020 (India), through the medium of English. The examination allows secure suitable representations of responsible schools (which are affiliated to it) in their states or territories.

Overview

Introduction

The ICSE is known for its comprehensive syllabus and primary focus on the English language and variety of subjects that it offers, which involve language, arts, commerce and science. The ICSE is taught in English only.

The ICSE Examination is a school examination and the standard of the examination pre-supposes a school course of ten years duration (Classes I-X).

The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Examination will ensure a general education and all candidates are required to enter for six or more subjects and Socially Useful Productive Work (SUPW).

Private candidates are not permitted to appear for the examination.

Academic Year

The beginning of the academic year in Schools affiliated to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) shall be from the middle of March and the first week of June each year.

Entry Requirements

1. Entry to the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Examination, in the case of candidates who are being entered for the first time, is restricted to candidates with a minimum of 75% attendance. Candidates can be entered only by the School they are attending.
2. Candidates who were entered as School candidates, in accordance with (1) above, and who were not awarded Pass Certificates may be admitted to Class X by 31st August, under intimation to CISCE, provided such a candidate fulfills all other conditions as per the Regulations.
3. Candidates who have been awarded Pass Certificates will be permitted to enter for a Supplementary Pass Certificate in any/all of the subjects offered.
4. Candidates who were not awarded Pass Certificates may appear for the Improvement Examination in subject/s (maximum two subjects) in which they have not secured the Pass Marks (33%)
5. There is no age limit for candidates taking the examination.

Subjects

Candidates appearing for the ICSE must write examinations in at least six or at most eight subjects. Of these, five subjects will be included in their final grade — out of these five, one will compulsorily be English, even if it is the subject in which the student has scored the lowest marks. There are three groups of subjects.

Group I (compulsory)-

• English
• Second Language (Any 1)
  • Hindi

    Indian regional languages

    • Ao-naga
    • Assamese
    • Bengali
    • Dzongkha
    • Garo
    • Gujarati
    • Kannada
    • Khasi
    • Lepcha
    • Mizo
    • Malayalam
    • Marathi
    • Nepali
    • Odia
    • Punjabi
    • Sanskrit
    • Tamil
    • Tangkhul
    • Telugu
    • Urdu

    Modern foreign languages

    • Arabic
    • Chinese
    • French
    • German
    • Russian
    • Modern Armenian
    • Portugese
    • Spanish
    • Thai
    • Tibetan
• Geography
• History & Civics
• History & Civics - Thailand
• Geography - Thailand

Group II (Any 2) -

• Mathematics
• Science (Includes Physics, Chemistry and Biology)
• Economics
• Commercial Studies
• Modern foreign languages (Group II):
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
• Classical Language
• Environmental Science

Group III (Any 1) -

Section A

• Computer Applications
• Economic Applications
• Commercial Applications
• Art
• Performing Arts
• Home Science
• Cookery
• Fashion Designing
• Physical Education
• Yoga
• Technical Drawing Applications
• Environmental Applications
• Modern Foreign Languages (Group III):
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
• Mass Media & Communication
• Hospitality Management

Section B

• Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
• Assistant Beauty Therapist
• Assistant Hair Stylist
• Basic Data Entry Operator
• Dietetic Aide
• Cashier
• Early Years Physical Activity Facilitator
• Auto Service Technician

It is to be noted that while ICSE offers each of these subjects to students, the school affiliated to CISCE may or may not be offering all the subjects listed. Depending on the school's resources, only a few subjects may be available to students.

In addition to the subjects listed above ICSE mandates an extra-curricular development to be displayed by students. This is achieved through a scheme called Socially Useful Productive Work & Community Service, commonly referred to as SUPW, introduced in 1978.

In accordance to SUPW, candidates will be required to select one main craft and one subsidiary service or one main service and one subsidiary craft per year of preparation for the examination. The craft may be aligned with their studies. For example a candidate who has selected Art may submit pottery as their craft.

ICSE added 8 vocational subjects under Section B of Group III in 2025.

Marking Scheme

Group I and Group II subjects have a separate marking scheme than that of Group III subjects, though all exams are scored out of 100.

In Group I and Group II subjects, candidates write an 80 mark paper on the day of the examination which comprises of the external examination portion of their marks. Another 20 marks comprise the internal assessment which is awarded based on projects, practical files or oral/aural assessments.

To obtain marks out of 100, both external examination and internal assessment is added and reported as final marks.

Thus the split between external and internal assessments is 80% and 20% respectively.

For Group III subjects, candidates write a 100 mark paper on the day of the examination, which comprises the external examination portion of their marks. Another 100 marks comprise the internal assessment which is awarded based on projects or practical files.

To obtain marks out of 100, both external examination and internal assessment marks are added and the average is calculated and reported as final marks.

This the split between external and internal assessments is 50%.

The pass marks for each subject is 33%.

Examinations

The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education Examination is conducted once a year, and usually spans 1 month. The registrations for supplementary examination and improvement examination are opened within a month after declaration of results of the main exam.

In 2025, the ICSE examination is scheduled to take place between February 18 through March 27.

In the one-month interval of the exams, only one examination is conducted per day, often leaving gaps in between each exam, giving candidates a large gap between their exams.

Each exam normally spans 2 hours, with the exception of the following exams which have a duration of 3 hours:

• Second language and other language exams
• Mathematics
• Art papers

Each exam usually has only one paper, with the exception of the following papers:

• English - 2 papers (Literature in English and English Language)
• Science - 3 papers (Physics, Chemistry, Biology)
• Art - 4 papers (Still Life, Nature Drawing/Painting, Original Composition, Applied Art)

Improvement Examination

All candidates who appear for the ICSE Main Examination, are eligible to take the Improvement Examination conducted on the same year of Examination.

Candidates are allowed to take the improvement examination for any two subjects they have enrolled themselves in.

Certification

The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education will be awarded to every candidate that sits for a minimum of 6 subjects and SUPW, attaining an aggregate of their 5 best subjects (including English) of above 33% and a grade of D or above in their SUPW.

Criticism

In 2013, a 20-year-old Indian student studying in the US, Debarghya Das, claimed in his personal blog to have downloaded the ICSE scores for over 100,000 students by scraping. His analysis of the data showed interesting patterns in the marking system, suggesting that the marks were rounded off with no student getting under 33 marks out of a possible 100. The reason for this was reportedly attributed to moderation; a practice also followed by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), it involved tweaking candidates' marks to account for paper variances.

See also

• Council of Indian School Certificate Examinations (The board which conducts the ICSE)
• Indian School Certificate (The Class 12th Level of the same examination)
• Central Board of Secondary Education (Another educational board which conducts nationwide exams at 10th and 12th level)

External links

• Official website of CISCE (homepage)