Less than a month before Class 12 examinations began on February 17, a Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) dry run of the board’s new On‑Screen Marking system flagged major technical and evaluation flaws. Participants said it would require at least a year of trials and rectifications. But the Board implemented OSM anyway. Subsequent student complaints over marks, a Delhi High Court petition, and the removal of the CBSE chairman and secretary have now put the rollout under intense scrutiny.

CBSE’s rollout of the On‑Screen Marking OSM system has triggered a major controversy after a January dry run flagged serious technical and evaluation glitches that, participants said, needed at least a year to fix. Despite those warnings, the Board implemented OSM for Class 12 exams; students soon reported mismatched sheets, blurry scans, missing marks and incorrect entries, prompting a Delhi High Court petition, the removal of the CBSE chairman and secretary and a parliamentary probe demanding accountability and fixes.

Dry run warnings ignored

A three‑day pilot exercise held in mid‑January in the national capital involved principals, evaluators, examiners and subject experts from five reputed schools- including Kendriya and Navodaya Vidyalayas, Delhi government and private institutions, said a report of The Indian Express. Participants trained on the platform and evaluated mock scripts, and then submitted detailed feedback. According to officials familiar with the exercise, the problems identified on day one persisted through day three and could not be fixed during the dry run. “The OSM system needs at least a year’s trial and rectification before being implemented,” one participant told reporters.

Cataloguing the glitches

The dry‑run participants flagged a wide range of technical and operational problems that later mirrored student grievances after the May 13 Class 12 results.

Documented issues included:

  • Marks increased by an Additional Head Examiner (AHE) showing up as negative changes (for example, +1.5 appearing as −1.5).
  • Misalignment between the CBSE’s marking schemes and what the software displayed, with screen marks not matching prescribed allocation.
  • Partial capture of multipart questions, where only one sub‑part’s marks were reflected.
  • Forced entry of 0.5‑marks where the scheme did not permit fractional scoring.
  • Frequent system hangs, especially on using the ‘Undo’ button.
  • Missing prescribed marks in the evaluation interface.
  • Progress not being auto‑saved.
  • Ability to assign marks to blank or unattempted pages by clicking question numbers.

“Many of these problems were raised in the feedback from the dry run but could not be rectified in the three days,” said an official briefed on the pilot.

Operational and evaluation risks

A second report submitted by participants listed at least 36 technical, operational and evaluation concerns. It warned of risks such as “blind or superficial checking” and stressed that the platform “does not provide opportunities for evaluators to interact, deliberate or arrive at a consensus while allotting marks, which is essential for fair and standardized assessment”. The report also noted the absence of a mechanism allowing Additional Head Examiners to return scripts for re‑evaluation when multiple errors were detected, potentially blocking necessary corrections before final submission.

Parliamentary panel grills CBSE over OSM failures

Members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports on Monday pressed CBSE officials and the Department of School Education for clear answers on responsibility for the problems arising from the Board’s On‑Screen‑Marking (OSM) system used in this year’s Class 12 examinations. The committee heard from the CBSE chairman and the Department secretary on the technical and operational lapses that students have been reporting, and stressed that accountability must be fixed for any institutional failures.

CBSE’s post‑pilot fixes and assertions

In response to the complaints, the CBSE published a document titled “Know About On Screen Marking” asserting that it had updated the system “as per suitability of the traditional evaluation system” and conducted the dry run to “check the feasibility of the system”. The Board said several changes were made after the pilot, including adding a ‘Save’ option, simplifying the mark‑deletion process, resolving a static‑IP issue, adjusting how marks displayed so they did not obscure written answers, linking marking schemes with answer books, and introducing colour codes to distinguish Head Examiner, AHE and evaluator actions.

“Several changes were incorporated in the system after the dry run was completed,” the Board said in its statement. It also noted that the three‑day intensive activity “provided the Board with a blueprint of what modifications were needed in the system”.

Student complaints mirror pilot issues

After the results were declared on May 13, students across several states reported that their scripts were inconsistently evaluated, partially or wholly unchecked, or marked using blurry scans and mismatched sheets- allegations similar to problems recorded during the dry run. Some students said they were marked on answers they had not written after scans and sheets reportedly got mixed up, added a report of The Indian Express.

Administrative fallout and legal action

On Tuesday (June 2), following an influx of grievances and a public interest petition filed in the Delhi High Court seeking an inquiry into alleged irregularities and technical failures in the OSM system, the government removed CBSE chairman Rahul Singh and Board secretary Himanshu Gupta from their posts and ordered an inquiry. The Indian Express sought comments from the removed officials and from Controller of Examinations Sanyam Bhardwaj; none responded before publication.

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Governing Body recommendation overlooked

CBSE Governing Body minutes from June 2025 show members had suggested that on‑screen marking “may be implemented only after completion of pilot projects in some subjects across the various Regional Offices of the Board”. That wider phased pilot was not carried out. Instead, the Board limited its trial to a three‑day exercise in five Delhi schools.

Why training and infrastructure matter?

Participants had warned that OSM depends heavily on well‑equipped evaluation centres and well‑trained evaluators. They said improved and extended training was essential for fair, transparent and error‑free marking- a process that “needs time to be done properly”. Their feedback emphasised that digital evaluation’s success hinges on robust operational safeguards, mechanisms for evaluator interaction and reconciliation, and greater server and interface stability.

The early warning that went unheeded

The sequence- detailed pilot feedback in January, limited fixes claimed by CBSE, full OSM rollout, student complaints after results, a court petition and administrative upheaval- points to systemic lapses in testing, risk assessment and change management. Critics argue the board underestimated the complexity of translating century‑old paper‑based evaluation practices into a reliable digital workflow.

The inquiry ordered by the government must examine why the board proceeded with the OSM rollout despite clear warnings, whether the post‑pilot fixes were adequate and whether the evaluation outcomes were compromised. The Delhi High Court petition could press for a comprehensive independent audit of technical logs, evaluation workflows, training records and grievances handling. For students, any verified errors could mean re‑evaluation and corrections to final scores.