Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday accepted responsibility for issues linked to the new on-screen marking (OSM) evaluation system introduced by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). He said some discrepancies had come to light about the system and assured students that all concerns would be addressed.
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“This was the first time CBSE used [the OSM process], and some discrepancies have come to light. I take responsibility for this and assure you that a solution will be found. We are working on it. We will not leave any student's query unaddressed,” he said.
Pradhan said strict action would be taken against anyone found responsible for irregularities affecting students. He also directed CBSE officials to resolve complaints in a timely, transparent manner.
“Around 17 lakh students appeared for the examination, and the answer sheets of each student have been securely preserved. In total, there are 98 lakh answer-sheet copies, with each copy consisting of around 40 pages, which means nearly 40 crore scanned pages were evaluated for the first time by CBSE through the OSM process,” Pradhan said on CBSE using OSM for examination paper evaluation.
The minister earlier chaired a high-level review meeting at the CBSE headquarters after several students raised concerns about evaluation errors. This followed after the CBSE had earlier defended the OSM system, noting that it is supported by a “secure and robust IT platform”. Calling it a progressive instrument, the central minister said that the system is designed to be student centric.
“Through this process, students can transparently access information about their marks, and through scanned copies, they can directly view their answer sheets. It helps address students' doubts and concerns regarding whether they received fewer or more marks, or whether any answer or section was overlooked during evaluation. This is the first time CBSE has implemented this system in the country,” he said.
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The controversy escalated after many Class 12 students took to X and other platforms to allege answer sheet discrepancies. Many said that the answer sheet provided to them by the CBSE did not match their handwriting, raising concerns over mis-match in the system.
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