Issues have been faced by several students with the discrepancies in evaluated answer scripts
India’s CBSE Chairman and Secretary have been transferred. An inquiry committee has been constituted to probe the procurement of On-Screen Marking (OSM) services by CBSE.
Earlier today, a class XII student whistleblower, who had raised issues relating to evaluation errors and on the rollout of the OSM appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education in Delhi on Tuesday, to highlight issues faced by several students and the discrepancies in evaluated answer scripts.
According to sources, Sidhant is giving a presentation before the committee at the Parliament House Annexe, where members are reviewing the use of OSM in CBSE Class 12 examinations and concerns raised by students regarding evaluation and transparency.
Ahead of the meeting, Sidhant alleged that a comparison of multiple CBSE tender documents revealed several discrepancies that, according to him, appeared to favour a particular service provider.
On-Screen Marking
Students raised concerns on receiving grades that were lower than expected, attributing it to the new OSM system. Many raised questions on if evaluators were trained for the new system, and how abruptly it was rolled out.
While CBSE initially maintained that the system ensures “fairness and transparency”, it recently admitted that there were vulnerabilities in the OnMark portal of its service provider.
The board claimed that the identified vulnerabilities had been contained. It also said that an expert team of cybersecurity professionals is said to be deployed over the last few days.
Who is Sarthak Sidhant?
The Grade 12 student whistleblower, spoke on behalf of multiple students when he questioned discrepancies between the physical and digital versions of answer sheets evaluated under the OSM system.
The ethical hacker earlier told the media that he had come across 15 discrepancies and many eligibility and qualification criteria in the tenders had been altered. His findings were based on documents accessed on the Central Public Procurement portal, he said.
In his blog, Sidhant had also alleged that the eligibility and technical requirements had been modified to benefit the company linked to the OSM system. “In the old tender there were three clauses of poor performance and the service provider would be disqualified if they have poor performance,” he said in the blog. “But in the new ‘Request for proposal’ tender, it was totally wiped out.”
(With inputs from Nithin Belle)
