Dr. Joseph Emmanuel is currently the Chief Executive and Secretary of the CISCE (The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations). CISCE is a Premier Educational Body responsible for administering Class X and XII examinations in India. He is a Postgraduate in Commerce and possesses a Doctorate Degree in Financial Management.
Dr. Emmanuel has about 30 years’ experience in the education sector and has held various positions in CBSE such as Director-Academics, Secretary, Regional Director, Officer on Special Duty for Medical Entrance Examination (NEET), etc. He had also served the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India as an Executive Officer.
He has also served as the National Project Manager for Programme of International Students Assessment (PISA) conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Dr. Joseph Emmanuel has been instrumental in setting up of CBSE Centre’s of Excellence at different parts of the country for the Capacity Building of School Heads and Teachers. As an Officer on Special Duty (OSD), he has successfully introduced the National Level Single Pre-Medical Entrance Examination (NEET) for MBBS and BDS admission for the first time in the country. Under his guidance, CBSE has brought out more than 110 Manuals, Handbooks and Textbooks in the last six years.
Dr. Joseph Emmanuel has been overseeing the unfurling of NEP-2020 through various academic initiatives and as part of it he initiated -
Key Stage Assessment (SAFAL) for measuring the leaning aptitude and learning achievement level of students at various stages of schooling.
School Quality Assessment (SQAA) for measuring the health of the schools,
Holistic Progress Card for mapping the students’ progress throughout the school years a host of student Enrichment Activities.
He is actively involved in promoting Competency Focused Education and Assessment to empower the Indian school education sector through innovative teaching, learning and assessment practices.
1. Mind-boggling changes are happening and impacting our lives. The speed of such changes appear as great concerns to school systems. As the Head of a big organisation, how do you envision these changes and their impact on schools?
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported in July 2024 that India is the 5th largest economy in the world and India’s rapidly growing GDP in the past decade has surpassed that of France and the UK. This spurt in India’s GDP is largely attributed to a young, technologically skilled work force, boom in startups and entrepreneurship, and an all-time high in India’s exports. So, in order accelerate or even maintain this economic growth, education and training at all levels of school and higher education needs to be revolutionised.
The world of work today is diversified with multi skill, inter disciplinary and globally linked possibilities. Students can create their unique learning trajectories without the pressure to conform to set norms and for this, they require physical & psychological resilience, adaptability and agility, entrepreneurial innovative thinking to collaborate well, communicate efficiently and solve real world challenges creatively. To nurture future ready students, educational boards, societies and schools need to bring in systemic reforms to allow for identification and nurturance of unique talents, ensure competency building vs. knowledge packing and integrate emotional, digital & financial literacy in the school curriculum. The teaching-learning should allow ‘uncovering’ of the student potential rather than just covering the curriculum. Schools should invest in teacher’s capacity building, infrastructural resources to provide engaging learning spaces and industry as well as community collaborations to bring real world insights into educational practices.
2. In the current dynamics of learning, it does not appear to be limited to a prescribed curriculum and a text-based teaching. With ‘freedom to learn’ from diverse sources, how do you expect the school curricula to be fine-tuned to the actual learning that happens to the learners?
It’s true that students are exposed to various sources of information and learning is happening on the go. The point of concern though, is whether the information available through these sources are authentic, valid, adequate or age relevant. Also, the information through these sources is in a fluid state and the students might find varying degrees of correctness at various places. It is through a structured curriculum with defined learning outcomes, pedagogical as well as assessment, practices can be developed by the schools where the teacher can then act as a facilitator to lead the students beyond conceptual knowledge to conceptual understanding, evaluation and its creative application. The curriculum provides a framework including scholastic and co-scholastic engagements focussing on long term holistic development of the student, where the whole is more than the sum of the part. In contrast, other sources deliver specific ‘packets’ of information to fulfil narrow and short-term objectives.
The responsibility to provide a curriculum that allows for numerous ways to engage with the learning content, lends itself to differentiation to engage with multi-level learners and can be quickly adapted to changed contexts and learning environments, rests with the school Boards though. Also, the quality and quantity of information available to students depends largely on whether they have the means to access that information. The curriculum and the resources for transacting the curriculum, as prepared by the School Education Boards, are widely available and freely accessible for all students.
3. With a huge digital divide between the teachers and the learners, with a strong disruption of classrooms by multiple technologies, what steps are being taken to prepare the teachers to be relevant for the current times as well as the future?
India should be very proud of its teachers for how they emerged as the symbols of normalcy, providing emotional succour, hope and continued education during the pandemic. The teacher community quickly adopted to edtech and adapted to teaching online. The pandemic fastened this evolution of ICT in education towards the emergence of digital pedagogy tools and techniques that evolved in response to the innovative mindset of our teachers. Similarly, the advent of new technologies in the education space will bring in new challenges and will again drive innovations in teaching learning methodologies. School systems can utilise AI for adaptive formative assessments and use data-based predictive analysis from large scale assessments for diagnosis and remediation of learning gaps. At CISCE, we are training our teachers on the use of ICT and digital resources in classrooms, on cyber security concerns, mental health issues in students arising due to hyper-exposure to social media. Also, schools are ensuring that the home-based assignments and project-based work given to students cultivates original thought and innovation, rather than just putting information together. Nonetheless, it’s imperative for educational institutions to empower students with the skills that can be adapted and updated for a dynamic jobs market and talents that can't be replicated by machine intelligence. The responsibility of fostering human values, ethics and positive dispositions in the youth, thankfully still lies with the teachers and parents.
4. Do you think the current examination and assessment systems are relevant and responsive to the learning competencies of the learners? What kind of changes are being envisaged to make assessments more credible, reliable and responsive to the changing learning practices?
The CISCE has been offering flexibility in the choice of subjects to students from Class 9th onwards as per their interests and aptitudes. Also, several subjects, including English Language is being taught and assessed through a modular system. This modular approach, unique to CISCE, allows for a deeper engagement with the subject with enhanced opportunities for achieving the subject specific competencies.
The CISCE assessments for Classes I-V are formative and continuous through observations, projects and presentations throughout the year. Both formative assessments through projects, quizzes and assignments as well as summative assessments through periodic tests and year-end examinations are the practice for the upper primary (Class VI-VIII). The ICSE & ISC (Class IX-XII) assessments consist of internal assessments through projects, presentations, practical exams and external year-end board examinations. The NEP 2020 emphasises on transforming assessment for optimising learning and development of all students with a focus on regular, formative and competency-based assessment, testing of higher order skills on core concepts and measures to reduce the stress of students because of the high stakes Board Examinations.
In alignment with this National Mandate, the CISCE has undertaken rationalisation of syllabus to focus on core concepts at the secondary and senior secondary stage. Also, a variety of competency focused questions have been introduced in the Board Examination since 2024, with a plan to increase the component of CFQs gradually each year. The in-built flexibility in the CISCE Regulations allows students the freedom to choose range of subjects in which they take board exams, depending on their individualised interests.
To reduce the stress involved in year-end high-stakes examinations, CISCE has introduced ‘Improvement’ Examinations in up to two subjects from examination year 2024, that students can appear for soon after the declaration of board results. Shortening the duration of exams based on subject of study at secondary and senior secondary stages and use of multiple methods of assessment to encourage students with different level of competencies to achieve the board examinations are the future pathways that CISCE is exploring to bring systemic reforms in its examinations.
CISCE is also planning to offer core subjects through two different approaches as per the interest, aspirations and competencies of the students.
5. ‘Teacher empowerment’ both at the enteral level as well as for those with a reasonable experience in the classrooms is the call of the day. Do you think only boards of education and other government agencies alone can do it? What is the role of private sector in teacher empowerment?
Teacher Empowerment is a continuous process that takes place through training and resource development. With the kind of transformative reforms that the NEP 2020 envisages, and the teacher being responsible for on ground implementation, there is a need to rapidly train teachers in innovative pedagogies and competency-based learning and assessments. This cannot be achieved by the government agencies and school boards alone. To ensure access to quality training for teachers at remote locations also, private agencies need to support government initiatives. There are several educational consultancies working in the private sector in India and globally which have driven government policies through their scientific research outcomes and are also supporting implementation of large-scale government interventions through their assessment and pedagogical models as well as capacity building of teachers. The edtech industry in India, under certain regulations can play a pivotal role in revolutionising human resource development in the country.
6. Your message for teachers and educators…
Teachers and educators are true nation-builders. Recognising the demands of the 21st century, they must equip themselves to meet new challenges in teaching, learning, and assessment. By educating and empowering youth to adapt to a dynamic, ever-changing world, educators become the torchbearers of social transformation and development.