ICSE board or CBSE, which one to opt?

Enrolling a child into a right school and board has been a great debate among parents of going kids in India. When you have a number of choices it is not that easy to simply opting a board by permutation or combination basis especially when the options are of almost similar. The same is applicable to parents when choosing ICSE or CBSE boards for their children as both are good, detailed and more or less same .However, they still have some differences in terms of ownerships of the boards, regulatory bodies, curriculum, scheduling of exams, future prospects and the difficulty levels. Therefore, it is important to understand in what way the boards differ, which one to choose for which reason and also the reasons to accept or reject a board based on the personal choices. Lest brush through the overview, pros and cons, differences and recommendations about CBSE and ICSE boards.

CBSE Board- a brief

CBSE or the Central Board of Secondary Education is the most well-known and highly preferred boards for all the primary, secondary and higher secondary kids. The board`s headquarters is present in Delhi.  Moreover, the class 10 and class 12 final exams of CBSE are conducted usually in the month of March. Being purely a governmental body, the fundamental aim of CBSE is the all-round development of a child’s character skills by providing a wide range of learning opportunities in the form of various subjects in theory and practical segments, . CBSE board is the most recognized body as per Government of India. More or less, the academics and textbooks prescribed in the CBSE board are same across the country. As a rough estimation there are more than 19000 CBSE schools in India.

ICSE Board –a brief

As the globalization is fast, Indian education has also made its stepping stone towards international standards. Keeping in mind about the importance of English subjects, foreign languages and many global competitive exams, ICSE has debuted in the year 1958. ICSE is the short form of Indian Certificate of Secondary Education controlled by CISCE (Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations). It is the largest private board in India becoming the second highest preferred next to CBSE. The principal mission of the ICSE is to serve the children of India, by providing them with good quality of education.

Differences between ICSE and CBSE boards

Subject depth and difficulty level

This is one of the unresolved puzzle as some parents feel ICSE is most difficult and CBSE is very vast. However, few opine that there is no much difference between them. But, in general, CBSE is so organized that the concepts are in depth but easier to understand with a scope for the explanation of every small aspects. CBSE syllabus is organized from simple to complex levels in a well-structured pattern. CBSE is the mix of theoretical, vocational, linguistic disciplines. On the other hand, ICSE is compact but complex to understand as its approach very straight forward rather than a progressively pared one.

Nature of subjects

As a general opinion, the whole idea of ICSE is to provide more weightage to the global languages especially English. However, science and Mathematics are also being given a great space.  On the other hand, CBSE is the mix of many subjects with a vast variety of concepts that are basic as well as applied however, students are mandated to choose 3 languages as they move to higher standards. CBSE is balanced with theory and vocational skills as their subjects are channelized into many streams, nevertheless English is not completely ignored. Language.

Future prospects

Having said that the subjects between the 2 boards vary, CBSE is given the first choice among those who are looking to compete most of the Indian entrance exams such as  NEET, JEE, JIPMER, CAT, CET and many more,. On the other hand, ICSE is preferable for those who wish to relocate tom foreign nations as ICSE is framed with advanced English language along with many foreign languages such as German and French. ICSE board makes easy to compete exams like IELTS, OET, and TOEFL.

Flexibility and Transferability

In view of abundance of schools, CBSE is most sought after as even small towns have CBSE affiliated schools whereas ICSE is mostly bound to Urban and Semi urban areas. For those parents whose jobs mandate frequent travelling between cities, CBSE is a good choice as there are a few ICSE affiliated schools.

Medium of Instruction

CBSE board offers instructions in English as well as in Hindi but ICSE board strictly adhered to only English as the medium of instruction.

Marking Scheme

This more important as students move onto their 10th standard. The grading and marking scheme for class 10 ICSE exams are prepared based on 3 major groups. Students who opt group 1 encompasses compulsory subjects with no choice to choose from.  Group 2- students have a scope to choose any two subjects and y Group 3 students can select only one subject. Group 1 and 2 have 80% of weightage of marks being allotted to externals for both Group 1 and 2 subjects, while 20% is for internals. Nevertheless, for Group 3, has weightage of 50-50 between internal and external marks. As per CBSE exam pattern, the CBSE Class 10 math question paper is allotted 3 hours to solve with 2 parts in it; they are Part A-carrying short compulsory questions with 40 marks and Part B that carries 40 marks with 7 questions out of which 3 are choices. On the other hand, for science subjects such as  physics, chemistry and biology have part –A and Part-B, in which part A carries one compulsory short question of 40 marks. Part B has 6 questions, out of which, the student needs to answer at least 4 to get another 40 marks.   Following table gives a brief idea of grading and point system of CBSE exams.

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