CBSE’s Digital Evaluation System Overlooks Teachers And Students: Apar Gupta

The digitisation of education must be assessed on whether it improves learning outcomes and benefits students and teachers, rather than on administrative convenience, said internet freedom advocate and lawyer Apar Gupta, raising concerns over the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for evaluating Class 10 and 12 answer scripts.

Speaking on the impact of technology on education, Gupta said the portal had exposed gaps in planning, cybersecurity, accessibility and grievance redressal. He questioned the decision to introduce the system across examinations involving around 46 lakh students in 26 countries, arguing that the needs of teachers and students had not received adequate attention.

Gupta said the education crisis extended beyond technology. Youth disenchantment, poor learning outcomes, inadequate public spending and limited employment opportunities had created conditions in which digital solutions were often presented as a remedy for structural problems.

He referred to the online Cockroach Janta Party campaign, which emerged after a judge's use of the word cockroach and gained followers rapidly on Instagram. Initially dismissed as a passing trend, the campaign reflected wider youth discontent, he said.

Gupta also cited estimates that only 40 per cent of graduates found employment, against the backdrop of India's population of 1.4 billion and a median age of around 28 to 30 years.

Referring to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022, he said only one in five Class 3 children in rural India could read a Class 2-level text. The proportion of Class 8 students able to perform simple division fell from 44.5 per cent in 2012 to 41.8 per cent in 2022.

He said education spending in the country stood at around 2.9 per cent of GDP and described the allocation under the Samagra Shiksha scheme as equivalent to about `4 per child a day. He also cited the closure of 51,000 government schools between 2018-19 and 2019-20, questioning claims that private institutions were necessarily more efficient when some teachers were paid as little as `1,925 a month.

Speaking about the CBSE fiasco, Gupta questioned the procurement process for the OSM system and referred to the vendor, Coempt Edutac, formerly Globerna Technologies, in connection with the Telangana intermediate examination results controversy of 2019, when around three lakh students failed and nearly 20 student deaths were reported. The controversy had prompted a notice from the National Human Rights Commission.

According to Gupta, the tender process involved three rounds. The first attracted no bids, while no firm cleared the technical evaluation in the second. He alleged that eligibility criteria were subsequently relaxed in the third round, including the removal of a clause disqualifying firms with poor past performance.

He identified four areas of concern with the portal: the treatment of teachers, the examination board's preparedness, the experience of students and the legal response to complaints.

Gupta said the system required teachers to evaluate around 20 to 25 answer scripts a day, with an expected working period of eight hours. This left approximately 24 minutes per script, without adequately accounting for page-loading delays or the need to reconsider marks after reviewing a batch of answers.

He questioned how teachers could manage digital evaluation alongside their regular teaching responsibilities, arguing that the system risked adding to the workload of staff who were already underpaid.