Published Paper Details:

Project-Based Learning (PBL) has gained renewed relevance in India as schools shift toward competency-based education and experiential pedagogies encouraged by national and board-level policy directions. Yet, despite widespread advocacy, Indian evidence on how and which 21st-century skills are developed through PBL at the secondary level remains scattered across subject areas, school systems, and implementation contexts. This secondary-data review synthesizes policy documents, curriculum guidance, and peer-reviewed empirical and meta-analytic research to examine the link between PBL and 21st-century skills among secondary students in India. Using a structured review approach (identification, screening, eligibility, synthesis), the study maps PBL design features to skill outcomes--critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, self-management, and digital literacy. Findings indicate that PBL is most strongly associated with gains in higher-order thinking, collaborative problem solving, and learner agency when projects are anchored in driving questions, authentic contexts, feedback cycles, and student voice. However, uneven infrastructure, assessment misalignment, teacher preparedness, and superficial "project display" practices often dilute impact. The review proposes a context-sensitive framework--the PBL-to-Skills Pathway Model--for secondary schools in India, along with implementation and evaluation recommendations aligned to policy expectations and board standards.