The head of the ICSE council announced on Tuesday, May 14, 2024 that they’re creating materials to help schools with their “internal assessments,” focusing on critical-thinking questions and sample papers. According to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), the share of such questions would go up to 20-25 percent of the 2025 board exams, up from 15 percent in 2024.
Joseph Emmanuel, the CEO and secretary of the CISCE, said that they are developing resource materials to promote competency-based questions for schools to use in their internal assessments.
Once the resource materials are prepared, they will be distributed to schools. Emmanuel mentioned that the council has initiated various activities to assist schools and students in addressing critical-thinking questions. This includes training teachers and adjusting teaching methods. According to the ICSE Council with the rise in critical-thinking questions in exams, students will engage in more project work. The council chief emphasized that support needs to start from early years and continue through Class XII.
On May 6, 2024, the council released the results for both ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII). The CEO and secretary mentioned that schools and students positively responded to the critical thinking questions. Emmanuel stated that the critical-thinking questions had a beneficial effect on the results. They were apprehensive of the students’ performance, but they have performed well.
Many schools expressed the view that critical and analytical questions should be integrated more frequently into classroom activities, not just during mid-year or final exams.
