Mita Mukherjee

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) will give 25 percent weightage to higher order thinking questions in ICSE (X) and ISC (XII) Examinations from 2025, the CISCE said.

In the 2024 ICSE and ISC board examinations, the share of such questions was around 15 percent.

The council has started releasing question banks of the new higher order questions to its affiliated schools, the council said.

The council has already sent specimen question papers covering all types of questions in selected subjects for the ICSE and ISC examinations of 2025 .

“From the Examination Year 2025, it is planned that approximately 25% weightage will be given to higher-order thinking questions targeting the learning domains of application, analysis, evaluation and creativity…. Joseph Emmanuel, chief executive and secretary of CISCE said in a circular issued to heads of schools.  

To “support students and teachers in its affiliated schools to prepare for the gradual shift in the assessment patterns, the CISCE has recently released the Specimen Question Papers in selected subjects for the ICSE and ISC examinations Year 2025. We are now releasing Item Banks of Competency-Focused Practice Questions at the ICSE and ISC levels for selected subjects …,” the council said in the circular.

The chief executive and secretary said, “These questions have been developed and reviewed by teams of experienced CISCE subject matter experts and were further vetted by external competent reviewers.  The topic and domain/s captured through a variety of questions, have been mentioned along with each question,” the council said.

The council has provided “Answer Key,” presenting the possible answers to a given question, but it is “neither “limiting nor exhaustive.” “Students are encouraged to adopt a critical thinking and problem-solving approach while attempting these higher-order questions,” the council said.

 The question banks are also meant to serve as resources for the teachers and they are encouraged to develop their own repository of competency-focused questions for classroom practice.

The council will release the “Item Banks” in batches of 3 to 5 subjects between July and August and can be accessed on the CISCE website through the Library (Publications) tab.

The council said that it has consistently emphasized the “pivotal role of education in preparing students for a rapidly evolving world by equipping them with essential critical thinking skills.”

Apart from offering a curriculum with substantial weightage to project-based and practical learning, “CISCE has been taking steps to infuse competency-based education in CISCE schools through teacher training as well as strengthening the Board assessments with the incorporation of competency-focused questions from the Examination Year 2024.”

In June last year the council had said that the ICSE and ISC exams would see a “small increase” in the higher order and critical thinking questions in the year 2024 and the percentage of these questions would gradually increase.

Principals of schools said in 2024 nearly 15 per cent of the questions were higher-order thinking questions but they were not certain about the share of such questions in the 2025 examinations.

“ Now that we know that 25 per cent weightage is to be given to higher order thinking questions, we are in a better position to prepare students and also our teachers for the new system,” Rev Rodney Borneo, principal of St. Augustine’s Day School Shyamnagar in West Bengal told EducationWorld.

Sujoy Biswas principal of Ram Mohan Mission High School said students need to develop a different kind of competency to solve higher order thinking questions. The council’s decision to release separate question banks containing higher order thinking questions will help the students and also teachers in a big way.

“ We have received sample question papers in selected subjects which are a mix of all types of questions. The new set of Item Banks covering only the higher-order questions will expose the students to the new question patterns,”  said Biswas.

Also read: CISCE urges foreign universities to give weightage to ISC students to skip semesters