International students and British students always face the issue of certificate equivalence when coming to India, due to the fact that India has two
main examination boards i.e CBSE and ICSE, which causes people to get confused on which is more similar to the GCSE. In this article we are
going to look into each of those boards and their exams, and what is the right way to get an equivalent of your GCSE in India.
The GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) also called Key stage 4, is an exam written by students of age 14 to 16 and in the years of
10 and 11., The subjects taken in the gcse are all optional except for maths, English, and science. Then it is up to the students to choose the
rest of the subjects, P.E and citizenship are also compulsory but are not written in the GCSE exam (if you want to read more about the GCSE
click here). While the CBSE and ICSE are both exam boards in India that offer different curricula for evaluating students.
The CBSE conducts two exams one at class 10 called the AISSE (All India Secondary School Examination) and the other at class 12 called the
AISSCE (All India Senior School Certificate Examination) . The student writing the AISSCE are to prepare for the following subjects : Science,
Mathematics, Social science, English, Computer Application.While students going in for the AISSCE are expected to prepare in the
Sociology: Indian Society
Sociology: Social Change and Development in India
On the other side, the ICSE also conducts two exams, the ICSE ( Indian Certificate of Secondary Education ) taken in class 10 and the ISC
(Indian School Certificate ) taken in class 12. The students in class 10 are tested on 10 subjects with 4 of them being compulsory, while students in class 12 have just 1 compulsory subject that is English.
From what we have seen above the GCSE can be equivalent to the CBSE -AISSE in terms of syllabus, grading, and subjects. But not the right way of
getting document equivalence, fortunately, the Indian government has put in place a procedure for getting certificate equivalence for more
details click here. For GCSE students to get their equivalence they will need to submit the following documents.
1) Photocopy of the Degree / Certificate together with the year-wise Academic
Transcript duly authenticated by the Indian Embassy in their country (or) their
Mission in India.
2) Accreditation status of the University / Institute, in which the student has last
3) Copies of the academic certificate of education.
All these documents will be sent to the following address
Evaluation Division, Association of Indian Universities, AIU House, 16
Comrade Indrajit Gupta Marg (Kotla Marg), New Delhi 110 002. Tel: 00 91 11 2323
0059 / 2429 / 2305. Fax: 00 91 11 2323 2131. Email: firstname.lastname@example.org
The total sum for the procedure is 200 Indian rupees, after the procedure is completed you will be sent an equivalence of your GCSE certificate.