Two years after it was introduced, the Central Board of Secondary Education, CBSE, has decided that students of class IX and XI can no longer carry textbooks to examination halls from this academic year. <br/><br/>Quoting official sources, PTI reports that this practice was hindering development of students' critical abilities.<br/><br/>Open Text Based Assessment, OTBA, was introduced by CBSE in Class IX for Hindi, English, Mathematics, Science and Social Science and final examination of Class XI in a few subjects such as Economics, Biology and Geography from March 2014. Under OTBA, students were provided text materials four months in advance and they were allowed to carry the case studies during the examination. <br/><br/>The students were allowed to refer to their notes or textbooks while answering questions. The focus was not on rote-learning, but on applying that information critically.