Education Ministry Intervenes in CBSE Evaluation Crisis; Technical Teams Formed to Address System Failures! Media Accountability, Student Grievances, CBSE Examination Reforms
- May 29
- 3 min read
New Delhi: A nationwide controversy has intensified over the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) Class 12 examination results and evaluation process. In response, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan chaired a high-level review meeting at the CBSE headquarters. Emphasizing that student welfare remains the top priority, the Minister directed officials to ensure a transparent and swift resolution to both technical and administrative challenges.The high-level intervention comes at a time of widespread student dissatisfaction concerning severe glitches in the newly implemented 'On-Screen Marking (OSM)' system and the post-results verification portal. This year, the Class 12 passing percentage dropped to 85.2%, recording its lowest mark since 2019.
High-Level Review and Directives for Technical Reform
The review meeting was attended by Sanjay Kumar (Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy), Rahul Singh (CBSE Chairman), Prof. V. Kamakoti (Director, IIT Madras), the Director of IIT Kanpur, and senior representatives from State Bank of India (SBI) along with other major public sector banks.
IIT Expert Team Mobilized: To resolve heavy server loads, login failures, and payment gateway bottlenecks on the post-results portal, the Education Minister assigned a dedicated technical team comprising professors and digital systems experts from IIT Madras.
Assurance of Strict Action: The Minister stated that negligence at any level, internal or external, would not be tolerated. Following significant public pressure, the board announced a substantial reduction in re-evaluation fees. The fee to obtain a scanned copy of the answer sheet has been slashed from ₹700 to ₹100 per subject. Media Accountability, Student Grievances, CBSE Examination Reforms
Infrastructure Crisis: Answer-Sheet Mix-Up and Social Media Controversy
Amid the broader policy debates, the case of Vedant Shrivastava, a Class 12 student from Delhi, drew national attention on social media. After receiving unexpectedly low marks in Physics, Vedant applied for a digital copy of his evaluated answer sheet. However, the document uploaded by the board belonged to a different candidate. To highlight this error, Vedant created a new account on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Social Media Misidentification and Claims by Mainstream Anchor
The Allegation: Responding to Vedant’s post, Ashok Shrivastava, an anchor for Doordarshan News’ primetime show 'Do Took', noted that the newly created account displayed its location broadly as "South Asia." From this, the anchor publicly questioned whether Pakistani users were appearing for CBSE exams. This claim was quickly amplified by several social media influencers.
Family's Clarification: The student's brother, Siddhant Shrivastava, refuted the allegations, explaining that new accounts on X often display a broad regional location (such as South Asia) for the first one to three days before updating to a specific country. Vedant later released a video demonstration showing that he was temporarily unable to manually alter the location handle.
Board's Rectification and Official Apology
Following widespread coverage and interviews of the student by mainstream media outlets (including Aaj Tak), the board initiated corrective measures.
Correct Answer-Sheet Delivered: On May 25, Vedant confirmed that CBSE officials contacted him directly to hand over his actual answer sheet. Reflecting on the ordeal, the student noted that while raising a genuine systemic issue briefly led to groundless allegations against his family, the truth was ultimately established.
Anchor's Apology: Following verification of the facts, Doordarshan anchor Ashok Shrivastava deleted the controversial post and issued a formal apology to Vedant and his family, expressing regret for the distress caused while noting the structural behavior of the platform's location tags.
The Ministry of Education and CBSE have reiterated their commitment to strengthening the digital monitoring framework and evaluation protocols to prevent such technical and manual errors in future cycles.
