It was a system first experimented with in 2014 and its revival for class 12 this year was cited as an example of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) pushing the boundaries of technology.
However, after the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system was rolled out this year: the board’s class 12 pass percentage dipped students across the country complained marks being lower than expected a board website was exposed as being unsecured, and the board was accused of favouring a vendor for the new technology
On Tuesday, the Chairman and secretary of the CBSE were transferred, but opposition parties have maintained that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan should also depart. Here’s how the introduction of a new checking mechanism for the examination went spectacularly wrong.
Week before the exam, a new checking mechanism
A little over a week before the exams began the CBSE announced it had a new checking mechanism for class 12 papers. Under the new system, answer sheets would be scanned and uploaded to secure servers.
Evaluators would then log in using credentials and assess answer books on computers. Marks would be awarded question-wise, and mark tabulation would be carried out automatically by the software.
The CBSE claimed the digital mechanism would remove totalling mistakes, reduce the need for post-result verification, and eliminate logistical requirements involved in transporting lakhs of answer books.
The results were announced on May 13, and the CBSE touted it as a big achievement. The pass percentage for class 12 had declined, but the board claimed the new checking mechanism had improved consistency and transparency. Those claims were questioned very soon.
Student question marks, teachers the evaluation
After the results were declared, students across the country began questioning the marks they had received. They claimed the new system led to missed answers and unexpectedly low scores across multiple subjects, with many wanting re-evaluation.
CBSE teachers also said that while some question papers were tough, it did not explain the decline in pass percentage. A section of school heads told TOI that the OSM system could have resulted in a more stringent evaluation.
“While correcting manually, when a paper is difficult, teachers evaluate it slightly leniently. This was not possible with the OSM,” said a Chennai school principal.
As complaints grew, the CBSE defended the process and said nearly 98.66 lakh answer books were scanned and only around 68,000 needed to be rescanned and around 13,000 needed manual assessment.
While the board claimed the numbers indicated proper quality control, students and parents said it also raised questions about the scanning process and evaluation.
Some teachers who assessed the answer sheets claimed to have evaluated papers through blurry scans. One teacher also alleged they were also being ‘watched’ and the evaluation centre got a call if someone seemed to take longer on corrections.
The collapse of the re-evaluation mechanism
Students then discovered that photocopies of evaluated answer books weren’t accessible on the CBSE portal and there were other problems.
There were also payment-related failures during registration. Many users said their accounts were debited successfully, yet the system kept showing an unsuccessful transaction.
Students also flagged problems with the quality of the uploaded answer sheets provided for verification. The scanned copies made available for download were blurry, poorly rendered or completely unreadable. Compounding these issues, repeated server crashes and “site under maintenance” messages were reported, especially during peak hours and closer to the re-evaluation deadline.
Student flags getting wrong answer sheet
Vedant, a class 12 student from Delhi, said he had raised concerns after getting lower-than-expected marks in Physics. But when he applied for scanned copies of his evaluated answer books, Vedant claimed the answer booklet sent to him did not match his handwriting or attempted answers.
“The handwriting style, spacing, slant, sentence flow — everything was different,” he wrote on social media. The CBSE admitted that an incorrect answer sheet had been uploaded due to an error in processing and documentation.
However, the incident sparked anger among other students since it raised concerns that something similar might have happened with them.
A student blog that exposed holes in website
A 19-year-old cybersecurity researcher, Nisarga Adhikary, alleged that he discovered multiple critical vulnerabilities in CBSE’s OSM portal.
In a blog post that went viral on social media, he alleged the flaws would allow unauthorised access to examiner accounts, password resets and even modification of students’ marks. Adhikary said he reported the vulnerabilities to authorities and received an acknowledgement reference number, but only some issues were fixed.
As the claims gained traction online, the OSM portal became inaccessible temporarily, with users reporting that the website had been taken offline. While CBSE initially claimed the site hacked was a test site, it later deleted the claim.
The CBSE also faced flak after reports indicated the board had compelled principals of schools across the country to issue videos on social media expressing support for the new evaluation mechanism.
A student raises questions about company at heart of process
While reports had begun to emerge alleging the CBSE may have relaxed conditions to allow tech firm Coempt Eduteck, an 18-year-old’s blog post resulted in opposition party leaders raising questions about the entire process.
In his post, Sidhant Sarthak alleged that multiple changes made to tender conditions over rounds benefited only Hyderabad-based Coempt Eduteck, which ultimately secured the contract. Sarthak’s blog compared different versions of tender documents and argued that several eligibility and evaluation criteria were modified before the final award of the contract. Among those who amplified his post was Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
The allegations were denied by BJP leaders who alleged that states in which Congress was in power also had used the company’s services.
However, within days, the central government removed CBSE chairperson Rahul Singh and secretary Himanshu Gupta from their posts with immediate effect. It also ordered a one-member inquiry into the procurement of the digital evaluation (on-screen marking) system.
Reports said that CBSE was advised to delay the launch of the new evaluation mechanism, but had ignored the suggestions. Noted educationist Anita Rampal pointed out in a column for The Times of India, that the class 12 board exams fiasco showed that digital marking is not the solution that the CBSE and the technology industry claim it to be.
She said the entire scandal had a lesson for education bodies like the CBSE before they launched such experiments in future.
“Let our academic bodies win their trust and seriously reckon with those digital allurements that do not bode well for the future of our children,” she wrote.
