What can be done to address the CBSE evaluation controversy?
CBSE On-Screen Marking (OSM) verification and re-evaluation for Class XII students suffers from limited access and technical/procedural barriers, leading to calls for a time-bound seven-day transparency framework.
- CBSE evaluates using scanned answer images and an online verification/re-evaluation route.
- Public Interest Litigation can reach the Supreme Court to examine fairness and integrity of administrative processes like examinations.
- Digitised scripts do not automatically give every student usable access for checking and correction.
- The Central Information Commission advises institutions to publish step-by-step Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for consistent handling of requests.
What happened: limited student access in CBSE On-Screen Marking (OSM) verification
A controversy has surrounded CBSE’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) process for Class XII evaluation, focusing on students’ ability to verify evaluated answer scripts and seek re-evaluation. The dispute is described as an access and transparency problem in a digital evaluation workflow.
CBSE digitised roughly 98 lakh Class XII answer scripts, but only about 4 lakh students could access around 11 lakh evaluated scripts for verification or re-evaluation. This gap meant that many students had no meaningful pathway to confirm whether their marks were assessed correctly.
UPSC can treat the CBSE OSM controversy as a governance test case: in digitised evaluation systems, fairness requires universal access to authenticated evaluated materials and predictable grievance redressal timelines rather than reliance on overcoming portal and scanning failures. The courts’ PIL focus on evaluation system integrity also helps frame what kinds of administrative safeguards are expected.