Skills
Sixteen skills. Three forms of work.
The skills we run in schools, mapped to CBSE's three forms of work. Eight have run in classrooms for years. Eight are new this session, built the same way, and each page says which it is.
- Skills
- Sixteen
- Forms of work
- Three
- Framework
- Kaushal Bodh · Skill-81/2025
- New this session
- Eight of the sixteen
Form of work 01
Work with life forms
Plants, soil, animals, the living things a school already has around it, and the readings that come from watching them.
- Growingslowlya seed tray, a garden bed, a ruler and a notebook. The plants do the teaching.First runs 2026-27
- Organic Farmingfeed the soilwhat the school throws away, turned into the soil the next crop grows in.First runs 2026-27
- Hydroponicsno soilgrowing without ground. A channel, net pots, and a reading that decides what happens next.First runs 2026-27
- Mushroom Cultivationthree weeksstraw, spawn, damp air and a dark corner. A crop that fits inside one term.First runs 2026-27
Form of work 02
Work with materials and machines
Making, mending and measuring: the things a class builds with its hands, and the machines it learns to run.
- Roboticsdesk to floormachines that sense, decide, move. Desk to floor is where learning lives.
- 3D Printing3rd trydesign, print, discover it doesn't fit, redesign. We built school printers in 2016.
- Dronesunder 250 gnano-class flight, DGCA-aware, aligned with national skilling priorities (PMKVY 4.0).
- Woodworkingno undoa plank, a marked line, a saw, and a joint that has to hold.First runs 2026-27
Form of work 03
Work on providing human services
Doing something for other people in the school or the neighbourhood, and finding out honestly whether it helped.
- Digital Citizenshipbefore you forwardforwards traced to their source, screen time measured, a code the students write.First runs 2026-27
- Entrepreneurshipthen the sumsa real stall at the Mela, a price, a ledger, and the sums done afterwards.First runs 2026-27
- Surveys & Datacount it firsta real question, a tally on a clipboard, a chart on the board, a decision the school makes on it.First runs 2026-27
Toolsets
Five that go where the brief points.
These sit in no single form of work. The same toolset serves a different one depending on what the class is asked to make: sensors in the school beds is work with life forms, the same sensors on a weather station is materials and machines, and the same sensors counting the queue at the gate is human services. Each page says which forms its briefs reach.
- IoT & Cloudmeasure firstsensors wired to a question the class actually has. A garden bed, a classroom, the library door.Any of the three
- Edge AIno cloudAI on a small board. No cloud account, no student data leaving the room.Life forms or Materials & machines
- AIthen it failsmodels students train, then test until they fail. The subject code 417 pathway for 9 to 10.Any of the three
- AR/VRbuilt, not wornexperiences built for an audience. Their confusion is the feedback.Materials & machines or Human services
- Codingthe substratesoftware for someone specific. The substrate under every other skill.Any of the three
How to read this map
A skill is a toolset. A form of work is what the project is for.
Circular Skill-81/2025 (28.10.2025) makes Kaushal Bodh mandatory in classes 6 to 8 from session 2025-26. CBSE's emphasis: learning from the doing, not the end product. Eleven of these skills sit in one form of work. Five are toolsets that serve whichever form the brief points at, so what a project counts towards is decided by the brief and not by the equipment. Most schools run two or three skills, so classes 6 to 8 cover all three forms; classes 9 to 12 carry the same skills further.
- 3projects per class per year, classes 6 to 8
- 1per form of work: life forms, materials and machines, human services
- 9by the end of class 8, kept in a portfolio and shown at the Kaushal Mela
Equipment is bought. Capability is built.
CBSE's CSL equipment list is explicitly "suggestive", adoptable per the school's readiness (Circular Skill-13/2026, 20.03.2026). No skill here needs a purchase before a conversation: we audit what the school already owns before we advise.
Questions
Honest answers.
Do we have to pick one skill?
No. Most schools run two or three, so classes 6 to 8 cover all three forms of work. Fit before ambition.
Which skill satisfies the Composite Skill Lab mandate?
None by itself. Skill-75/2024 and Skill-13/2026 require the lab space. The recurring work is the projects, portfolios, and Kaushal Mela that Skill-81/2025 asks of classes 6 to 8.
We already bought equipment. Can you use it?
Yes, and we'd rather. Most school labs are well-built and underused. We audit before we advise.
Half of these are new. What does that mean?
Eight skills have run in classrooms for years: AI, Edge AI, Drones, Coding, IoT and Cloud, AR/VR, 3D Printing and Robotics. Eight are new for 2026-27, built the same way: growing, organic farming, hydroponics, mushroom cultivation, woodworking, digital citizenship, entrepreneurship, and surveys and data. Each page says which it is, and the workshop is where you watch one run before you commit.
Talk to us
The easiest thing is to talk.
Bring the situation: the mandate, the lab, the timetable. If we are not a fit, we say so.
info@hankernest.com
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