The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is under fire for the discrepancies in the On Screen Marking digital evaluation system.
Meant to bring in transparency and fasten the evaluation process, it was implemented for the 2026 batch of Class 12.
On May 13, controversy broke out after the announcement of the Class 12 results and several students complained that their answer scripts were not scanned properly. For some students, pages from their answer scripts were missing. A few even complained of incorrect evaluation. The pass percentage dipped from 88.39 last year to 83.29.
State-run institutions in Karnataka have been managing digital evaluation for years now, without giving room for any controversies, something federal bodies like the CBSE can learn from. Some universities dispatch question papers online without any fuss.
DH explains this and hopes nothing will be jinxed.
Explained | CBSE's new Class 12 evaluation system under fire: What is OSM and why are students worried?VTU sets in motion foolproof system
The VTU, which manages 200-plus engineering colleges, was India's first university to implement digital evaluation in 2011. It started with outsourced software and migrated to its own unique software in 2016.
How does it work? To set and dispatch question papers, VTU uses the Question Paper Management Portal and delivers question papers to exam centres online with two-factor authentication. A secure VPN connectivity is established between VTU, Data Centre (DC) and the exam centre. A dedicated 4 MBPS leased line is used for this purpose. Question papers are delivered half an hour before the commencement of exams, and they are downloaded using two-factor authentication.
For evaluation, the answer scripts are scanned at VTU's Belagavi and Bengaluru campuses. The scanned scripts are stored in a central storage at the Data Centre. The university has 27 evaluation centres across the state where faculty members evaluate using digital evaluation system software. Marks are allotted through QR code.
Vidyashankar S, VTU Vice-Chancellor Every semester, we manage over 13 lakh answer scripts. No technical glitches are reported in digital evaluation or question paper dispatch. This has put an end to malpractices.VTU software to BU rescue
BU adopted digital evaluation by procuring VTU's software in 2018-19. VTU trained BU faculty members on digital evaluation. BU handles answer scripts of 6.5 lakh undergraduate and postgraduate students every semester.
"This really helped the university to come out of a bad image. Soon after exams, answer scripts are scanned using an in-house system and securely stored. Earlier, we received complaints on wrong marking and totaling," a BU official said.
RGUHS does it with surgical precision
The state's lone public medical university adopted a digital examination and evaluation system in 2015. The university has over 1,500 colleges including medical, dental and nursing. It handles 25 lakh students a year.
RGUHS vice-chancellor Dr B C Bhagavan explained that scanning is done by colleges under surveillance and web streaming. Evaluators are provided a unique ID and their login will be through facial recognition. Answer scripts will be visible to them only after entering their unique ID.
If the answer scripts are blur, then evaluators can reject them and they get re-scanned. To prevent post-evaluation issues, each script undergoes double evaluation.
B C Bhagavan, RGUHS vice-chancellor There were a few glitches in the beginning, but now the system is being praised and running perfectly.KEA CET(s) example with OMR format
KEA conducts the all-important Common Entrance Test (CET) for three lakh students eyeing admissions to engineering and other professional courses. It is also entrusted with the task of conducting recruitment exams for various government departments. While KEA dispatches question papers physically, the evaluation is system-based as the question paper is in Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) format.
After the completion of exams, answer scripts are transported to the central office, scanned and uploaded for evaluation.
Meanwhile, KEA starts question paper-setting a year before exams. This happens digitally through a question bank. Officials say KEA cannot dispatch question papers digitally as the number of sheets ranges from 30 to 70 and they are bilingual.
KSEAB warm-up with II PU prep exams
The Board conducts exams for about eight lakh SSLC (Class 10) students and 6.5 lakh second pre-university students. While evaluation is manual, the KSEAB attempted dispatching question papers digitally for PUC-2 preparatory exams.
"I feel CBSE should not have gone digital with evaluation in one phase. It should have tried it for a few subjects with fewer scripts," a KSEAB official said.