A botched transition to an on-screen marking (OSM) system for evaluating Class XII answer scripts has forced a leadership shake-up at the top of the Central Board of Secondary Education. The axe of accountability has fallen on chairman Rahul Singh and secretary Himanshu Gupta, with Lokhande Prashant Sitaram and Varun Bhardwaj appointed to replace them, respectively. OSM involves scanning of pen-and-paper answer sheets for online assessment. There was nothing wrong with the policy per se—such platforms work efficiently elsewhere. But the way it was implemented here left students and parents shocked and distressed.
For starters, the contract for the digital platform was awarded just 74 days before the board exam began on February 17. A pilot test in mid-January spotted plenty of bugs and suggested delaying the rollout, but the advice was ignored. The result: the first round of revaluation requests threw up blurry scanned copies, missing pages and supplementary sheets, incorrect answer books or evaluation against a different set, and unexpected drops in marks. It led to a flood of students demanding revaluation, at which stage the payment gateway demanded phantom fees. Besides, the system was found porous, potentially exposing scanned answer sheets along with evaluator and student information to hackers.
The OSM contract went to the Hyderabad-based Coempt EduTeck last December on the third attempt of floating the tender, with the process progressively reducing compliance specifications. Student-whistleblower Sarthak Sidhant blogged about his explosive findings after examining the tender documents on the Central Public Procurement portal, yet no corrective action was taken. He also deposed before a parliamentary standing committee in the presence of the outgoing CBSE chairman and secretary, both of whom reportedly had no clear rebuttal.
People-facing platforms abroad are subjected to intensive stress tests before they go live. Why CBSE’s OSM was cleared after just one pilot test remains a mystery. The government has since constituted a one-member committee headed by S Radha Chauhan to investigate the award and procurement of services related to the OSM platform, and submit a report within a month. The CBSE could also consider returning the revaluation fee to students as a stress buster, the way the education ministry did to take the sting off the NEET-UG retest.