Things Every Parent Should Know about a CBSE or ICSE Board School

Thinking of enrolling your child into a board should come first before deciding on the right school for them. Choosing the board eliminates a lot of schools on your list making the process of choosing the right school for your child an easy process. Here is everything you need to know about the ICSE VS CBSE board format before you choose the right school for your child.

Each education board has its own unique advantages that help your child advance in their scholastic journey therefore a detailed analysis of every board is necessary. Roughly the Indian Education system offers four elementary boards that students can choose-

1. Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE)
2. Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE)
3. State Boards like UP Board, Delhi Board, West Bengal Board etc.
4. International Baccalaureate (IB) that are usually found in urban areas.

The boards are very similar in their approach to education. They teach almost the same subjects, however have different methods of teaching the same concept, have different elements in their syllabus, the scope of their curriculum and learning objectives.

Parents often get confused surrounding education boards when they are selecting a school for their child. The immense confusion around this topic can be resolved by just looking at the pros and cons of these two education boards.

Let us first look at the history of both the ICSE and the CBSE Board.

ICSE Board- The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education was established by the Local Examinations Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. It conducts the ICSE Board Examination at the end of the 10th grade and the Indian School Certificate (ISC) Board Examination at the end of the 12th grade.

CBSE Board- CBSE is the central board of education for Indian school students. It conducts national level exams for students that are qualifying exams to pursue higher education. An important thing to note about the CBSE board is that it conducts national level entrance examinations for admission to different engineering and medical courses at the undergraduate level.  Therefore, this board can be opted by aspirants of NEET and JEE.

Next, let us take a look at the syllabus of each board-

Both ICSE and CBSE boards give due importance to the variety of subjects available, however both ICSE and CBSE  differ in the terms of focus. While both these boards investigate the scope of every discipline, CBSE plays much more focus on Science and Mathematics, while ICSE Board pays equal attention and focus to all subjects including English, Arts, History, Politics and more.

CBSE is more concise, simple and to-the-point in its approach, however ICSE likes to explore every subject in a very detailed and comprehensive manner. CBSE has a very workable and short syllabus, however the ICSE syllabus covers every subject matter in detail giving rise to a lengthy syllabus.

The focus on language is very visible in the ICSE schools as they have a very sophisticated and complex language syllabus, often including Shakespeare and classic English literature in its course. They also have a wide variety of languages like Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada and more as a second language option.

Therefore, if scope of syllabus is a concern and a deciding point, ICSE truly shines over CBSE in this case.

Now let us take a look at the readiness of each course-

Whatever the board you decide for your child, ultimately it boils down to whether the skills learnt at school are transferable. On one hand, where ICSE students learn every concept in depth and have a sound analytical analysis, the CBSE board allows your child to be ready for competitive exams. As the CBSE board conducts JEE and NEET exams, their study material makes the children exam ready!

Apart from these specific points, it is worth considering that CBSE boards are accepted everywhere in India. Since the study material is the same, for parents with traveling jobs, it is very easy for your child to keep up with different schools because of the consistent study material and medium.

Podar International School is renowned as a visionary and rapidly growing education group in India that has been around for nearly a century and is renowned for its modernized and well-rounded CBSE school curriculum for students! Now that you know that your search for the best school for your child is over, head on to our website for more information about their enrolment process!