NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examinations for Classes 11 and 12 will see a slew of changes from the 2024-25 academic session. The format will now be based on more competency-based questions that assess the application of concepts in real-life situations, according to board officials.
The competency-focused questions would be in the form of multiple choice, case-based, or source-based integrated questions. While the percentage of such questions has been increased from 40 to 50 per cent, the percentage of constructed response questions, including short and long answers, has been reduced from 40 to 30 per cent.
“The board, in accordance with National Education Policy, 2020, has taken multiple steps towards implementation of Competency-Based Education in schools, ranging from aligning assessment to competencies, development of exemplar resources for teachers and students, as well as continuous capacity building of teachers,” said Joseph Emanuel, Director (Academics), CBSE.
“The main emphasis of the board was to create an educational ecosystem that would move away from rote memorisation and towards learning that is focused on developing the creative, critical and systems thinking capacities of students to meet the challenges of the 21st century,” Emanuel added.
Emanuel said the board is continuing to align the assessments and evaluation practices with NEP-2020 for the academic session 2024-2025. “Consequently, in the forthcoming session, the percentage of competency-based questions that assess application of concepts in real-life situations included in the question papers of the board has been altered,” the CBSE academics director said.
However, there is no change in the examination format for Classes 9 and 10.
To boost critical thinking
The percentage of competency-based questions has been increased from 40 to 50 per cent, while that of constructed response questions, including short and long answers, has been reduced from 40 to 30 per cent. The main emphasis of the board was to create an educational ecosystem that would move away from rote memorisation and towards learning that is focused on developing the creative, critical and systems thinking capacities of students to meet the challenges of the 21st century.