Mita Mukherjee

The Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), chief, Gerry Arathoon has urged its affiliated schools to start training their teachers appropriately in order to prepare them to teach students how to attempt application and analytical -based questions.

The teacher training is essential as the council has introduced application and analytical-based questions in 2022 and 2023 exams and it has plans to gradually increase the number of such questions in “small doses” in the next few years, Arathoon said.

 A quick glance at students’ performance in some subjects in this year’s exams revealed that candidates required better understanding of the new pattern, the council said.

These questions are different from the traditional pattern and meant to test the analytical skills of the students. Students would not be able to answer these questions only by recollecting what they have learnt in the text books, instead they would need to apply their minds.

“We have already introduced application and analytical- based questions as suggested in the New Education Policy.  In the new system students will not be able to answer only by memorizing facts. Teachers need to be well-equipped to help students understand these high order thinking questions. The schools will have to take necessary steps to prepare the teachers to teach students how to answer the new type of questions,” Arathoon told EducationWorld.

The CISCE chief, however, said that the council being a student friendly board will not shift to the new pattern at one go.

“We will introduce more application and analytical-based questions but we will do this gradually in small doses. We do not want to shock the system,” said Arathoon.

Several schools had complained about many ISC examinees   facing difficulty in answering the economics and accountancy papers this year as there were too many application -based questions.

According to the council, there was “nothing wrong with the papers.” Yet, some students had faced problems because they needed conceptual clarity for answering the new type of questions, which they lacked.

Students will gradually get used to the new concept once teachers study the new pattern and teach the students how to answer such questions.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) too has introduced high order thinking questions and in the 2024 Class XII exams the board plans to have at least 50 percent competency-based questions.