August 21, 2013, 12:00 am
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has declared that it will provide the text material for open book examination in September. The Open Text-based Assessment (OTBA) will be conducted for Std IX and XI only and it works on the concept of providing the students with the test material weeks or months before the examination. The questions for the examination will, however, be based on higher order thinking skills (HOTS).
CBSE’s director Sadhana Parashar wrote to schools informing them that the text material for OTBA is currently under preparation. She also clarified how the marks scored in OTBA by Std IX students will be adjusted in the summative exam II (SA-II) since that class follows the continuous and comprehensive evaluation scheme (CCE).
For Std XI the OTBA will be applicable only to Economics, Biology and Geography. For both classes the OTBA will be part of the final examination scheduled for March. In an earlier circular CBSE chairman Vineet Joshi had justified the need for OTBA saying "multiple modes of assessment need to be provided to cater to the varied abilities of individual strengths of the learner. These are meant to incorporate analytical and theoretical skills, thus moving away from memorization".
