To improve the Class XI and XII examinations, CBSE will emphasize applying ideas

There will be several modifications to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams for Classes 11 and 12 starting with the 2024–2025 academic year. According to board officials, the format will now be centered on more competency-based questions that evaluate the application of principles in practical settings.

Multiple choice, case-based, or source-based integrated questions would be the formats of the competency-focused questions. The proportion of constructed response questions, which include both short and lengthy replies, has decreased from 40% to 30%, despite the growth in the amount of such questions from 40% to 50%.

According to Joseph Emanuel, Director (Academics), CBSE, “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, as well as continuous capacity building of teachers.”

According to Emanuel, “the board’s primary goal was to establish an educational ecosystem that would shift away from rote memorization and toward learning that is focused on developing students’ capacities for critical, creative, and systems thinking in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”

According to Emanuel, the board is still working to get the evaluations and evaluation procedures for the academic year 2024–2025 aligned with NEP–2020. According to the CBSE academics director, “as a result, in the upcoming 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 altered.”

But the structure of the exams for Classes 9 and 10 remains the same.

To strengthen one’s capacity for critical thought

Competency-based questions now make up 50% of the questions, up from 40% before. Constructed response questions, which include both short and lengthy replies, now make up 30% of the questions. The board’s primary goal was to establish an educational environment that would shift away from memorization of facts by heart and instead emphasize teaching students how to think critically, creatively, and strategically in order to prepare them for the problems of the twenty-first century.