Days after the declaration of the CBSE Class 12 board examination results, concerns surrounding the board’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) system have snowballed into a wider debate on transparency, trust, and the emotional toll of high-stakes examinations.While the Ministry of Education has defended the digital evaluation process, students and parents across social media have continued to raise complaints about allegedly blurred scans, unexpectedly low marks, and difficulties in the re-evaluation process. The growing discontent has exposed the fragile relationship between technology-driven reforms and student confidence in India’s examination system.At the centre of the controversy is the OSM system under which answer sheets were scanned into PDF copies and evaluated digitally by teachers instead of being physically checked.
Ministry says OSM is not new
Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Sanjay Kumar, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, said the system was not being introduced for the first time.According to Kumar, CBSE had initially introduced On-Screen Marking in 2014, though it could not continue then due to technical infrastructure limitations. He said the system was successfully implemented this year for Class 12 board examinations.“Some students feel that they should have received higher marks than those actually awarded to them. I would like to emphasise that On-Screen Marking is neither a novel concept nor is this the first time it has been implemented,” Kumar said in the press conference.He stated that answer sheets of nearly 98 lakh students were scanned during the examination process. The ministry also maintained that three levels of security checks were followed to ensure accuracy and reliability.Kumar further argued that one major advantage of digital evaluation was the elimination of human errors in totalling marks, a problem that had often surfaced during manual checking.
Concerns over blurred scans and readability
Even as officials defended the system, many students alleged that the issue was not with totalling but with whether answers were properly visible to evaluators in the first place.Several posts circulating on X questioned the quality of scanning and whether examiners were able to clearly read handwritten answers.An X user, identified as Pixel Tech Lab, claimed, “This is the type of scanning done by CBSE in the name of OSM,” while sharing screenshots allegedly showing blurred answer-sheet scans.Another user, posting under the name “…” (@sohi66636), described the system as “a scanning lottery,” alleging that blurred scans may have hidden properly written answers and led to unfair deduction of marks despite students’ efforts.Vivek Chandra Jeet Sharma (@ChandraJee36211) urged authorities to scrap the OSM process and conduct manual re-evaluation, citing alleged inconsistencies in scanning.The concerns have resonated widely because board examinations continue to carry enormous academic and emotional weight for students. For many, these marks influence college admissions, scholarships, and future career pathways. One social media post that gained attention read by Adv.Sapra says: “Our future is not a game.”
Ministry admits 13,000 answer sheets faced scanning issues
Interestingly, the ministry itself acknowledged that some answer sheets could not be properly scanned. According to Kumar, around 13,000 answer sheets were found to be partially illegible despite repeated scanning attempts because students had used very light-coloured ink.“Ultimately, it was also found that in the end, we had about 13,000 such answer sheets, which we found that no matter how many times we scanned them, there was some illegibility in them because the ink used was of very light colour,” he said in a press conference.Those answer sheets were later checked manually by teachers and the marks were uploaded into the system, officials said.However, for many students, this has intensified fears over whether similar problems may have gone undetected in other copies.
Students speak of stress, shock and loss of confidence
The controversy has also highlighted the emotional distress students experience when examination outcomes appear inconsistent with their expectations.A widely shared post by X user Anurag Tyagi (@TheAnuragTyagi) described the issue as a “system failure,” alleging problems ranging from portal crashes to inadequate teacher preparedness.“A child studies for 1 entire year… but one poorly planned system can destroy confidence in a single day,” the post read.Another user, Iftikhar Hussain (@Iftikharhu13223), questioned how examiners could fairly assess answers if scans appeared blurry.The growing online reaction reflects a deeper concern among students, not merely about marks, but about whether the evaluation process itself is transparent enough to inspire confidence.Education experts have long argued that while digital systems can improve efficiency and reduce clerical mistakes, their credibility ultimately depends on consistent execution, technological reliability, and clear communication with students.
A debate larger than technology
As the debate around CBSE’s On-Screen Marking continues, what stands out is not just the push for digital evaluation but the anxiety it has triggered among students who feel their efforts may have been caught in technical gaps. While technology in education is important and inevitable, its success depends on how well it is implemented on the ground. Teachers need proper training, systems must be tested thoroughly, and infrastructure has to be reliable before such changes are scaled up. Most importantly, when students’ futures are at stake, there is little room for rushed experimentation or half-ready transitions.