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There is tension in Colaba following the closure of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) municipal school at N A Sawant Marg and shifting students to online education, citing substandard infrastructure. Parents, students, and local leaders protested on Monday, calling for an urgent substitute for on-campus learning.

Both the school buildings have been termed unsafe, as per BMC's School Infrastructure Cell. 1,500 of the 2,800 students are still in online mode, but the others have no facilities for classes. Parents complain the decision is unjust, especially for poor children who do not have proper devices, space, and supervision for online learning.

"This is not possible for our children. How can students from humble backgrounds learn at home in the absence of facilities? Several of them are already losing interest and drifting out," said ex-BJP corporator from Colaba, Makarand Narwekar. He further stated that parents would protest outside the BMC headquarters if the alternative space is not arranged in two days' time.\

Parents were also frustrated with the online learning process. "If two kids from the same family are here in this school, do we need to purchase two smartphones? The timing of classes is informed just an hour in advance. We need to keep children under watch at all times so they study, but when will we be able to work? Now, they want to shift us to GT School, which is in poorer condition and could close down anytime. Exams are near, and our kids are left in the lurch," complained parent Kumar Rathod.

Narwekar has written to Municipal Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, seeking prompt action. Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (MSCPCR) has also been sought out to investigate the issue.

Terming the BMC's inspection as "unjustified," Narwekar asserted that the school building was repaired two years ago and now only needs some minor work. "Closing a working school will damage the students' future. Officers in air-conditioned rooms need to realize the ground reality," he said.

Another parent, Charan Rathod, claimed that the issue has been hanging fire for two months, with student dropouts resulting from this. "If the problem is not resolved in two days, we shall also join the protest at BMC headquarters," he threatened.

Parents and civic leaders claim the deadlock will continue until the civic body arranges for a secure, functional space for the kids to start in-class studies again.

In a vivid example of the infectious staff shortage affecting Assam government schools, the state high school is battling to accommodate just four teachers to instruct nearly 700 students, sending alarm bells ringing about the quality of education being delivered.

Despite serial recruitment drives and the introduction of the TET to make public school personnel more robust, things are far from reality. Students in this over-packed school are said to lack effective academic guidance, and the classes are disorganized between subjects and grades for the teachers.

"It is practically impossible to give the students their due attention," remarked one of the unwilling teachers. "We have to deal with several subjects, perhaps without a break, and still cannot teach the syllabus fully."

The crisis caused shock waves among education activists and parents, who are seeking an immediate response from the state government. "It is not a matter of staff — it's a matter of children's future," said community leader and education activist Ramen Deka. "Since there are no proper teachers, even primary learning objectives are not achieved."

The government has recognized teacher shortfalls in some areas but bureaucratic hitches in appointments and inadequate infrastructure persist to fuel the issue. Although the TET has improved the recruitment of fresh recruits, there are still some which go unpublished or encounter bureaucratic setbacks in their deployment.

Experts note that these variations in teacher-to-student ratios bear long-term consequences, particularly in rural and semi-urban pockets where other facilities like coaching or internet studies are not available.

Parents of the students have approached the state education officials, pleading with them to send more teachers on priority, make occasional visits, and establish support systems for frazzled staff. If no urgent action is taken, they caution, an entire generation of students will be lost.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has sanctioned the open-book examination for Class 9 students from the 2026-27 academic year. The same was sanctioned after the results of the feasibility and acceptance pilot study in schools were encouraging.

As detailed in the reports, the proposal was sanctioned by the CBSE Governing Body, the board's apex decision-making body, in a meeting in June. The program is in line with the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE) 2023, aligned on the template of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Structure and design of the assessment

According to the approved plan, open-book tests would be included as part of internal tests carried out by the schools for Class 9. They would be one of the three pen-paper tests administered for every term. The fundamental subjects that would be covered by this model would include language, mathematics, science, and social science.

Although the model will be suggested to schools, it will not be compulsory. Instead, it will be a model for schools to follow if they decide to use this kind of examination. Schools will be directed on how to appropriately administer open-book exams.

Objective and reason behind the change

CBSE's action is aligned with what is suggested in the NCFSE, which is shifting from the rote route to competency-based learning. Open-book examinations are now intended to be a way to assess students' skills to interpret, apply, and analyse information instead of memorization of facts.

The open-book format enables the students to use documents like textbooks, class notes, and library materials in reference to trying questions. This format is designed to examine their capacity to adjust available information presented elsewhere, which remains a key tenet of the NEP 2020.

Pilot study and previous attempts

In December 2023, the CBSE had sanctioned a pilot study to implement open-book examination in Classes 9 to 12. The pilot was conducted to study aspects such as the duration of time taken to finish the tests along with the attitude of stakeholders such as students, teachers, and school administrators. The study, as per the media reports, showed robust support from teachers for open-book modes being brought in.

This is not for the first time when CBSE tested open-book exams. In 2014, the board had launched an Open Text Based Assessment (OTBA) for Class 9 in Hindi, English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. It was later launched in Class 11 for Economics, Biology, and Geography. There, four months prior to the final exam, the reference material was provided to the students. Still, the OTBA was withdrawn in the 2017-18 year as it was not found to enhance critical thinking among the students to any great extent. Implementation and future directions

The new scheme will try to promote higher-order thinking among the students and will compel schools to have the required capacity and training. CBSE has plans to support the schools with clear guidelines on how to administer these tests within their internal assessment system.

The program will develop a more application-based pattern of assessment in accordance with the overall purposes of the NEP 2020 and the NCFSE 2023

The training was not your run-of-the-mill workshop but an experiential, simulation and highly contextualized one so that teachers didn't merely learn but lived through them

In a major step towards class room change and 21st-century skill building, Telangana State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) in partnership with Pi Jam Foundation successfully organized a two-day high-intensity capacity building training for state government school teachers. The focus was on equipping teachers with skills, attitudes, and methods to appropriately embrace and utilize the newly-released Digital Learning Textbooks for Grades one through nine, an innovative effort by the Telangana Education department.

Spread over two days, the training was not the typical workshop. It was immersive, experiential, and deeply grounded in real-life scenarios to ensure that teachers did not just learn concepts, but experience them. The objective was not only the acquisition of skills but also developing an attitude of thinking, problem-solving, and applicability to the lives of students. The sessions were deliberately scaffolded in a way that they were in close proximity with the digital content of the new textbooks so that the same energy, relevance, and depth could be transferred by teachers in classes.

The initiative of Telangana's digital learning textbooks is a milestone moment in the delivery of content and learning by students. To facilitate learning on a continuous basis and ensuring equitable access, the state will use telangana.codemitra.org an expert digital platform where parents, teachers, and students can learn from the same experiential learning modules. "The energy in the room was palpable," said a teacher who was present. "First time I realized how I can educate AI not only from screens, but also from games, stories, and the everyday life of our kids." - Mr. Madhusudan, Model School, Gundala, Yadadri Bhuvanagari

Highlights of the workshop were - simulation of real-world traffic scenarios by utilizing physical computing hardware such as LEDs and sensors to make the educators comprehend how real-world issues can be converted into coding exercises. The AI instruction that defined concepts like machine learning, data categorization, and bias in screen-free, tech-knowledged-free terms. The rest are - role-playing and team games on moral AI decision-making and algorithmic human biases, participating in intensive discussion and contemplation with design thinking sprints, where teachers addressed common school problems, empathized, and prototyped contextual solutions quickly. This project falls in line with Telangana's larger vision of developing curious, competent, and contextually aware learners who would be capable of contributing and succeeding in the world of tomorrow.

As per the suggestions of a 360-degree evaluation committee report submitted to Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel recently, government schools will usher in soon a shift from a one-way evaluation system to one where students, parents, and peers will join in the evaluation process of teaching and learning along with teachers.

As reported by The Indian Express, the assessment committee that was set up last March 3 this year with the objective of revamping the student evaluation system also recommended the abolition of the so-called "ekum kasauti," or six-year-old unit test system.

Through a more informal, experiment-oriented, continuous assessment, the unit test — perhaps the most hated state government school educational program — was conducted in nearly 40,000 primary and middle government schools.

The committee has prepared a Holistic Progress Card (HPC) format for foundation, preparatory and middle level primary schools along with the recommendation report.

"The panel also recommended a shift in the weightage of assessment from written tests to practical and written tests on equal proportion", stated Jayendrasinh Jadav, educationist and Registrar of Gujarat Sahitya Akademi, Gandhinagar, who is chairperson of the state-level committee.

Three subcommittees were constituted to frame three Holistic Progress Cards for Balmandir, Classes 1 and 2, Classes 3 to 5, and Classes 6 to 8.

Education department officials indicated that a ruling on the implementation of the proposals will be announced after the submission of the report.

Moreover, the committee has opined that teachers should be in a position to decide when to administer tests aside from the four exams given within a school year (twice within a semester).

Ten other individuals, including members from primary and secondary teacher associations, constitute the committee besides Jadhav.

No sooner was the "ekum kasauti" launched in 2019–20 than teachers and educationists have time and again protested, represented, and opposed it. The Gujarat government, therefore, formed a special committee to consider student evaluations other than weekly, fortnightly, and monthly tests.

Besides being a CBSE Class 10 subject, social science is an interdisciplinary gateway to knowledge about global historic processes, geographic trends, political organisations, and economic decision-making. The subject, whose topics focus on geography, political science, economics, and history, leans the student towards critical thinking about society and the path of society's development over time.

Keeping in view the development of conceptual comprehension and analytical minds, the CBSE has made its official sample question papers of 2026 available. These are not practice pages in a strict sense; these are indicative of the increasing interest of the board in learning by application, application to real-world problems, and integration of subjects. Through observing the structure and design of such questions closely, the students are better equipped to understand content as well as context.

This clarification gives a concise summary of provided multiple-choice questions from the history segment of the Social Science sample paper. It tries to guide students by the hand in explaining right answers, defining key concepts, and identifying those areas where it is important to know—not memorize.

Section A (History)

Q1. Thousands of people emigrated from Europe to America during the 19th century due to

1. Poverty and fatal diseases
2. Recurring famines and unclean living
3. Recurring wars and political unrest
4. Hostile climate and recurring natural calamities

Q2. Louise-Sebastien Mercier wrote, "Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world! Tremble before the virtual writer!"

Who are the tyrants here?

1. Educated classes with a reformatory aspiration for society
2. Absolutist institutions such as the monarchy and the church
3. Authors of the new books
4. Printing press

Section B (Geography)

Q1. What is needed for the development of resources to become total development?

1. Availability of resources standalone.
2. Foreign occupation and invaders.
3. Technological improvement and institutional reform.
4. Human resources can alone bring about development.

What is the most roundabout effect of poaching on tigers?

1. Decline of prey species, decreasing the food base for the tiger.
2. Human-wildlife conflict in protected areas increased
3. Increase in tiger population
4. Decline in national park tourist revenues

Section C (Political Science)

Q1: The following statement(s) is/are true regarding the ethnic makeup of Belgium:

1. 59 percent of Belgium's overall population reside in the Wallonia region and are French speakers.
2. 40 percent reside in the Flemish region and are Dutch speakers.
3. One percent of Belgians are German speakers.
4. In the capital city of Brussels, 80 per cent French speakers and 20 per cent Dutch speakers.

Select the right option:

1. I and II
2. III and IV
3. I, II and III
4. I and IV

Q2: Take the given case and select the right option

Assume that Government of India is going to issue new notes of various denominations to keep most of the black money. State government is against this Central government policy. Is the state government capable of preventing the union government from implementing the policy?

1. Yes, since Currency is a State List topic
2. No, since Currency is a Union List topic
3. Yes, since both the governments shall have to sanction this change.
4. No, since any such change shall have to be sanctioned by the local government as well.

Section D (Economics)

Underemployment is said to occur where -

1. More employees are employed than are actually required
2. Fewer employees are employed than are actually required
3. More than what the workers have earned are they hired
4. Only highly skilled workers are employed

What can be concluded about the disadvantages of employing per capita income (average income) when estimating well-being of countries? Choose the best one as the Answer.

1. It demonstrates how evenly or un-evenly the income is divided between the people living in a country.
2. Per capita income alone is sufficient to be aware of the development of a nation.
3. It provides a general idea about the economic affluence but conceals the inequality of income.
4. It provides only the industrial development of a nation but not any other significant determinant.