– 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.
As many as 1,07,000 candidates have registered for ISC and 2,70,000 students for ICSE. The ICSE will be conducted in 2,900 schools and ISC from 1,600 schools, sources said.
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.
Also read: Delhi Implements Emergency Measures as Air
