Deadline for Abstract Submissions:  31st March 2026

Selection Notification to Authors: 15th June 2026

CSpathshala (https://cspathshala.org) proudly announces the Eighth conference on Computational Thinking in Schools (CTiS2026) in July, 2026 at IISER, Pune and hosted by   SCTR’s PICT ACM Student Chapter (PASC).

The CTiS (Computational Thinking in Schools) conference is an annual event organised by the ACM India (Association for Computing Machinery, India) and the CSpathshala community. It aims to bring together teachers, educators and researchers to discuss innovations, best practices and issues pertaining to curriculum, pedagogy, policy and implementation, related to bringing computational thinking to schools. 

CSpathshala is an ACM India initiative to bring a modern computing curriculum to Indian schools. In our National Education Policy 2020 and in many countries across the world, Computational Thinking (CT) has been identified as one of the essential subjects to be taught and a critical skill to be developed in children during the school years. It advances the notion that the Mathematics and Science behind Computer Science go far beyond the simple ability to use computers, and can be taught and discussed in schools even without the use of computers. The first CTiS conference was held in Pune in April 2019 and the current  CTiS2026 is the eighth edition. All seven editions were highly successful and were well received by teachers and educators. The Eighth Annual Conference on Computational Thinking in Schools (CTiS 2025) was organised by CSpathshala, an ACM India education initiative from 24th to 26th July, 2025 at IISER, Pune and hosted by GK Gurukul School, Pune and SCTR’s PICT ACM Student Chapter (PASC). The three-day national-level conference brought together more than 350 educators, researchers, and school teachers and an online participation of 1500+ across 18 Indian states .

The conference was inaugurated by Dr. Kamladevi Awate, Joint Director, SCERTM Pune. The Program Committee chairs Chitra Babu and Lakshmi Gandhi shared that over 490 abstracts were received from teachers across India, of which 82 were selected for presentation as well as poster/demo through a rigorous review process by the program committee.

CTiS2026 aims to provide a platform for teachers, educators and experts to share their best practices as well as challenges faced in implementing computational thinking in education. The discussions will focus on integrating CT activities both plugged and unplugged (with or without the use of computers) in various school subjects, on student learning outcomes and on disseminating findings of CT based experiments or classroom research conducted by teachers and educators across the country.  The conference will feature  keynote talks, workshops, panel discussions and paper presentations on various themes related to Computational thinking.

Paper Presentation

The conference attempts to cover a wide range of topics on Computational Thinking and its implementation in the school curriculum. These include, but are not limited to:

  1. CT and Coding
  2. CT based unplugged activities in the classroom (in any subject)
  3. CT and use of AI
  4. CT and teaching AI
  5. CT for students with special needs
  6. CT for professional development of teachers
  7. CT in Mathematics Education
  8. CT in Science Education
  9. CT in Social Science Education
  10. Challenges in integrating CT in the school curriculum
  11. Assessment of CT
  12. Impact of CT activities on student learning
  13. Localisation and adaptation of CSpathshala curriculum to suit local needs
  14. CT and Physical Computing
  15. CT and National Education Policy
  16. CT and societal problems

One of the primary objectives of the CTiS2026 is to elicit the views and understanding of practising teachers with regard to CT. In this context,  interested teachers/educators are invited  to submit an abstract (not exceeding 1000 words) on any of the above  themes (though not restricted to the above themes). Participants are encouraged to focus their presentation on sharing their own work and experience related to CT. Please refer to the abstract template and samples provided for preparing your abstract. It is recommended to follow the format suggested by these samples.

Deadline for Abstract Submissions:  31st March 2026

Selection Notification to Authors: 15th June 2026

Final Submission of Presentations and Videos (based on need): TBD

Please send your abstract to cspathshala@gmail.com (in DOC or PDF format) latest by 31st March 2026. The abstract may be in English, or in any of the regional languages. The names of all authors, the details of school affiliation and contact details are ESSENTIAL. If a participant feels that s/he needs help and guidance in writing the abstract, s/he can approach the committee.

Review Of Abstracts

The submissions will be reviewed by the conference program committee. Originality as well as clarity of ideas presented will be the primary criteria for an abstract to be selected for final presentation. Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by 15th June 2026. The program committee members will mentor the selected authors to prepare them for the final presentation in the conference.