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7th Conference on

Computational Thinking in schools

CSpathshala (https://cspathshala.org) proudly announces the Seventh conference on Computational Thinking in Schools (CTiS2025) from 24th to 26th July, 2025 at IISER, Pune and hosted by GK Gurukul School, Pune and SCTR’s PICT ACM Student Chapter (PASC).

Deadline for Abstract Submissions: 6th April 2025
Selection Notification to Authors: 20th June 2025

7th Conference on

Computational Thinking in Schools

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 CTiS2025 is the seventh edition.

All seveth editions were highly successful and were well received by teachers and educators.The Seventh 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.

Highlights of CTiS 2025:

Keynote Address by Jane Waite from the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre, UK, on “AI in Education – Emerging Research Themes”
Hands-on Workshop on “Artificial Intelligence tools to increase Teaching Productivity” by Mamta Manaktala, Senior Learning Manager, Raspberry Pi Educational Services
Panel Discussion on “AI in School Education” with panelists Dr Arpita Karkarey, Walnut School, Mr. Anay Kamat, Goa, Mr. Ajinkya Ambarkhane, Meghe Group of Schools, Dr. Manisha Yadav, MHSCERT and moderator: Prof. R Ramanujam, Azim Premji University

The keynote talk discussed the three different aspects of bringing AI to school education. One is using AI tools to increase the productivity of teachers, Second is using AI tools to teach other subjects more effectively. Third is teaching the concepts of AI itself.

The panel discussed the pros and cons of teaching AI to school children, its impact on learning and assessments, and challenges faced by both private as well as government schools. The panel concluded that there are no issues with the first and second usage of AI. It is only for the third category, more understanding should emerge in deciding what exactly should be taught in AI for the school children.

The workshop introduced the various AI tools based on Large Language Models(LLMs) and provided a methodology to come up with suitable prompts based on the intended objective and also to refine them further to get accurate results. It also cautioned the participating teachers that the result could be inaccurate or wrong sometimes because of potential hallucinations.

CTiS2025 provided an opportunity to over 120 teachers to share their innovative ideas on the pedagogy used in teaching CT through a wide range of themes across CT in Math and Science Education, Social Science and Language Learning, Unplugged CT activities, Inclusive Education, Coding and Physical Computing and Professional Development of teachers.

Hemant Vandekar – Head New Initiatives spoke about Sakal’s Newspaper in Education (Sakal NIE) which is a novel program that helps students ‘Stay Ahead’ and aims at making ‘Learning Fun’. He also shared about how the schools and teachers can collaborate and contribute to Sakal NIE.

The conference showcased the growing adoption of CT-based pedagogies in classrooms through innovations and adaptation to local context across rural and urban schools across India. The sponsors for the conference included SIILC, Sakal NIE, Icertis, Microsoft Research, Sunrise Infotech and Unity ERP and LMS.

The journey of CTiS since 2019, the conference has grown into a community of practice by providing a platform for teachers, educators, and experts to share best practices and address challenges in implementing Computational Thinking (CT) in schools. CTiS 2025 showcased the increasing adoption of CT-based pedagogies in the classrooms—demonstrating innovation and local adaptation in both rural and urban schools.