What Went Wrong with CBSE’s OSM System? Students Flag Answer Sheet Mismatches After Results

The controversy has widened beyond the complaints of two students of CBSE Class 12 and has raised questions about the credibility of the Central Board of Secondary Education’s post-result system and the new On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.

Students have alleged, through social media platform X, that they were given scanned answer sheets that do not match their alleged handwriting in terms of style and content. And the question now is whether a few mismatches have occurred by mistake or if there is a larger problem with CBSE’s system of digitally evaluating answer sheets and maintaining scanned images in its databases.

The controversy began when Class 12 student Vedant claimed that the page of his Physics answer sheet uploaded by CBSE did not match his handwriting or writing style. Soon after, another student, Sanjana, also claimed that her answer booklet in Chemistry did not match her handwriting. The controversy is happening while nearly 17 lakh students sit for the CBSE Class 12 examinations this year.

What sparked the CBSE answer sheet controversy

The problem presented itself after CBSE introduced a new post-result system where students could access scanned images of their evaluated answer sheets before applying to verify or re-evaluate the answer booklet. The introduction of the system was touted as an act of transparency. Still, several students complained about delays, crashes on the portal, problems with the payment gateway, and images with blurred-out handwriting.

The problem gained more traction when Vedant claimed that the Physics answer sheet shared with him was not his. According to his post, the handwriting, sentence formation, and spacing were completely different from his own. Screenshots sent to students later online showed that CBSE had acknowledged the problem and promised that revised marks would be updated.

Sanjana’s allegation came to attention after she claimed that the first page of the answer booklet matched her writing. However, the body of the answer booklet seemed to contain different handwriting. Sanjana’s allegation is more serious because it seems that answer booklets have been mismatched when scanned and uploaded or tagged for their respective subject.

What went wrong in OSM system

The CBSE’s On-Screen Marking system was implemented this year for one of its largest exam sittings, in which teachers graded answer sheets digitally and not through a physical checking method. This system was introduced to improve speed, standardisation and transparency. But, apparently, this process raised concerns, even during the very evaluation process itself.

Teachers were supposedly grappling with issues like slow interfaces, login problems and delays in operations while checking answer sheets digitally. There were also reports of most evaluation work being done in the final hours preceding the result declaration.

According to experts, the controversy may be a result of failures at different points in the evaluation chain, from barcode tagging to scanning to digital mapping, storage, and sharing of answer sheet files to the very accessing of the answer sheets themselves.

It is more serious than it looks, however, because physics and chemistry are among the most attempted subjects in the science stream. Even by conservative estimates, about four lakh students may have appeared for these two papers alone. With the possible failure of even one single answer sheet being wrongly tagged or uploaded, the question of the robustness of the quality control mechanisms in the system arises.

Why are students on X raising alarm

After Vedant’s and Sanjana’s grievances, a flood of students on X shared that the scanned answer sheet was unlike his writing style or his expected answer. Though not yet independently verified, crowdsourced complaints have added more pressure on CBSE, post-results.

Students and parents have started to question whether the issue was a single case or if similar gaps were present for thousands of answer booklets during digitisation. The conversation has now also evolved to be about transparency, accountability and trust in such a vast school examination system.

Why could this controversy have long-term consequences

The most important unanswered question is the missing piece of the puzzle: if Vedant received the wrong answer sheet, then whose answer sheet was he given, and whose answer sheet was that sent to him. It is this mystery that makes this controversy so significant for the long term. Many students have highlighted that if a single answer sheet was incorrectly mapped during the OSM process, it means that there is no certainty that other answer sheets for Physics or Chemistry did not suffer similar mapping errors.

For a board that evaluates lakhs of students each year, even a few mismatches can erode the confidence of the entire examination ecosystem. The discussion now has moved beyond the issue concerning two students to a broader question regarding whether CBSE’s digital evaluation system has been fully ready to roll out at such a large scale.

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