MORE QUESTIONS ON CBSE EVALUATION

THE controversy surrounding the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) expanded on-screen marking (OSM) system has triggered an unusually intense backlash.

- JOHN J KENNEDY

Thousands of students and parents have complained about blurry scanned answer sheets, missing pages, technical glitches, delayed grievance-handling and confusion in the revaluation process. Reports that technical experts from two IITs had to address the digital infrastructure problem only deepened public anxiety. Many teachers, too, questioned whether digitisation had been implemented without adequate preparation or safeguards.

Surely, the criticism is valid. Any examination system that places immense psychological pressure on students cannot afford procedural chaos in evaluation. The simple logic is that credibility depends not only on strictness but also on reliability, transparency and humane execution. If answer scripts are unclear, technology malfunctions or students struggle even to access their own evaluated papers, trust inevitably erodes.

However, amid the outrage over OSM, another uncomfortable possibility deserves attention. What if the present crisis is exposing not only the failures of digital reform, but also the weaknesses of the earlier system that many had quietly accepted for years?

For over a decade, India celebrated soaring board examination scores as proof of educational progress. Every year brought record pass percentages, extraordinary numbers of students crossing the 90 and 95 percent thresholds and schools proudly advertising “centum results”. The public narrative was simple: students were becoming smarter, schools more effective and the education system more successful.