According to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has provided all the boards of assessment in the country with the necessary nudge and reason to move towards the path of change, thus preparing both students and teachers for the fast-changing learning landscape of the 21st century.
CISCE says that it had already taken the following initiatives in alignment with the recommendations of NEP 2020.
- Workshops on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy for Teachers of Pre-Nursery to Class III to train them as Master Trainers
- Capacity Building Workshops on Strengthening Assessments for Teachers of Classes IX to XII to train them as Master Trainers
- Introduced new vocational and skill-based subjects such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Robotics, Cashier, Dietetic Aide, Basic Data Entry Operator etc.
- Prepared resource material on focus areas of NEP 2020 pertaining to school education
Continuing in this journey, CISCE says that it is preparing to conduct the below programmes for Heads of Schools and Teachers.
- School Leadership Training Programmes
- Capacity Building Programmes for Teachers
- Webinars related to areas such as:
- Vocationalization of Education
- Hospitality Management
- Beauty & Wellness
- Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
- Financial Literacy
- Foundational Literacy and Numeracy
CISCE says that in addition to the above, it is working on a few more focus areas proposed by NEP 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) to bring about changes in the areas of assessment, pedagogy and technology. With these objectives in mind, CISCE has entered in to a collaboration with Educational Initiatives (Ei) to receive technical and advisory support to initiate and implement changes in these specific areas.
Educational Initiative (Ei) is working with CISCE to effect some of these changes and thereby enhance quality, provide technical support and its expertise in these areas. The work of Ei will complement the efforts of CISCE to bring about efficient and applicable changes, gradually within a given span of time.
CISCE’s ongoing and forthcoming projects
Several initiatives have been planned and a few underway to support CISCE affiliated schools get prepared for forthcoming changes. These initiatives are aimed at re-orienting the approach to learning from rote-based to one based on understanding and application of concepts. The key focus areas will be capacity building of teachers and enhanced exposure of students to critical thinking and higher order questions.
- Capacity Building of Teachers – Teachers are the agents of real change that takes place in the classroom. CISCE is planning to organise “Capacity Building Workshops” for Teachers to strengthen their understanding of assessment and equip them with the right skills to write good questions. The focus of these workshops will be on understanding the key principles of assessment, the importance of good assessment items, and the art and science of writing good items etc. The schedule of these workshops will be shared with affiliated schools in due course.
- Creation of repository of resources – CISCE is presently working to create a repository of resources whose purpose will be to familiarise both teachers and students with assessments that test application, analysis and critical thinking skills. These resources will be shared with schools in an incremental manner and their use defined in alignment with the intended pace of change.
- Question or Item Banks – CISCE plans to gradually familiarise teachers and students with questions that require understanding and application of concepts and critical thinking. These items may also be used as practice questions in the classroom or as part of the school’s internal examinations. The eventual goal is to enable students to go beyond rote-learning and memorisation of facts and move towards development of conceptual understanding.
- Learning Frameworks
- Blueprints
- Video explanation of concepts on assessments
- Video and documents explaining some common misconceptions among students
CISCE envisages a “unity of learning” for all its affiliated schools, with a vision for changes which will percolate to the lower classes as well. With the ICSE and ISC examinations as the anchor, CISCE intends to gradually prepare students, starting from middle school to adapt to the desired changes in the learning ecosystem.
CISCE aims to expose teachers, students and parents to the expected changes in the learning approaches in the initial stages of students’ academic journey. CISCE expects that this early exposure will also assist in the right expectations from schools, teachers, students and parents on the upcoming changes in the question papers that are expected to start from the academic cycle year 2023-24.
CISCE wants all the stakeholders to note that there shall be small increase in percentage of higher order and critical thinking questions in the Year 2024 ICSE and ISC Examinations. This percentage will progressively increase in the subsequent years ahead. In keeping with this, CISCE will soon be making available to its schools “Specimen Questions Papers” in select subjects for the Examination Year 2024. Schools are advised to integrate the new pattern of questions in both formative and summative assessments so as to prepare students for the upcoming changes.
