CBSE: No open book exams for Classes 10, 12 this year; pilot only in a few schools

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will conduct the pilot open book examination (OBE) only for Classes 9 and 11. While the board’s governing body had approved the CBSE open book exam plan for all secondary classes – Class 9 to Class 12 – in December, the board has now decided against piloting the project in Class 10 and Class 12 in 2024-25.

Plus, the pilot will be restricted to only a few schools this academic year and expanded in the next, CBSE secretary, Himanshu Gupta told Careers360.

Initially, the CBSE board had planned to conduct a pilot study on open book examinations in six subjects across the four classes.

CBSE open book exam 2024: Classes left out

The governing body of the CBSE during its meeting held in December had ratified the recommendation of the curriculum committee of holding open book tests or assessments for secondary stages (Classes 9-12) in a few subjects.

The document said: “The tests may be piloted in schools to examine various aspects for this assessment namely, the time taken by students to complete it, its suitability for formative/summative purposes and the stakeholders perceptions regarding this.”

The committee was looking at development and review for six subjects, English, science and mathematics for Classes 9 and 10. For CBSE Class 11 and Class 12, it was considering open book exams in English, mathematics and biology. But now the scope of the pilot has been limited.

“It has now been decided that the OBE will be piloted for Classes 9 and 11. There will be no OBE in Classes 10 and 12. For this year, the pilot will be conducted in a few schools. In the 2025-26 academic year it will be a larger pilot,” said Gupta.

The recommendations of conducting open book tests for higher secondary classes were given in the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE) 2023.

CBSE open book exam plan

“The idea is to bring on competency-based assessment,” Gupta further explained. “Year on year we have been increasing the weightage of such questions because it is the need of the hour and to make a shift from rote learning to critical thinking. Ultimately the aim is to make competency based questions for almost 50% of the Class 10 and Class 12 exams.”

In an open book exam, students are allowed to answer questions with the help of textbooks and approved materials. Delhi University (DU), Banaras Hindu University (BHU) are some of the educational institutions which conduct OBE assessment for semester exams.

On the two board examinations as announced by the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the board is known to be closely working with the ministry.