Complying with the recommendations of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the CBSE has introduced coding and data science as skill subjects in the schools.

Sharing the information, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank tweeted: “Under NEP 2020, we promised to introduce coding and data science in schools. Today, I’m happy to see CBSE fulfilling the promise right in the session of 2021 itself.

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“In association with Microsoft, CBSE is empowering India’s future generations with new-age skills. Kudos.”

The CBSE also communicated to all heads of its affiliated Institutions about the introduction of ‘coding’ and ‘data science’ as a skill module or skill subject from the current session.

The CBSE wrote that coding is a creative activity that students from any discipline can engage in and it helps to build computational thinking, develop problem solving skills, critical thinking and exposure to real life situations to solve issues in various realms.

“Therefore, coding’ is being introduced as a Skill Module of 12 hours duration in Classes 6 to 8. The idea is to simplify the coding learning experience by nurturing design thinking, logical flow of ideas and applying this across the disciplines,” its communique said.

Faculty and Student Handbooks have been created with support from Microsoft, so that the students can work on applied projects and integrate coding across multiple subjects and make learning fun.

“Faculty resources will empower the faculty for teaching these concepts. The Handbooks cover real life examples on coding. builds exposure to ethics of coding and provides exercises and applications using the open source MakeCode platform,” it said.

Emphasizing importance of data in today’s world, the CBSE introduced ‘data science’ as a Skill Module of 12 hours duration in class VIII and as a Skill Subject in classes IX-XII. Student and faculty handbooks and teaching materials have been created with support from Microsoft.

The NEP -2020 has laid stress on skilling of students and recommended that by 2025, atleast 50 per cent of learners (through the school and higher education system) should have exposure to vocational education, for which a clear action plan with targets and timelines will be developed.

Currently, the CBSE offers nine Skill Modules at middle school level, 18 Skill Subjects at Secondary level and 38 Skill Subjects at Senior Secondary level to upgrade the skills and proficiency of the young generation and explore the various career options available.

More than 20 lakhs students are presently studying Skill Subjects at Secondary and Senior Secondary level in approximately 12,000 schools.