CBSE OSM Systems Under Fire As Scripted Defence Videos Go Viral

Hyderabad: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is facing intense criticism following the release of near-identical videos from school principals across India defending the controversial On-Screen Marking System (OMS). This coordinated social media campaign appears to be the result of a “toolkit” provided by the board’s regional officer to counter the widespread backlash over class 12 evaluation discrepancies.

The circulated document, material for principals, explicitly directs school heads including government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, on how to defend the OMS system on social media, even providing specific scripts. Following the circulation of the document, the videos have taken over multiple schools’ social media pages.

The toolkit has urged principals to describe the system as “transparent”, “accurate”, “technology-driven” and “faster” and to reassure the stakeholders by calling the Board “highly proactive, empathetic and communicative regarding these teething issues”. The script advised principals to tell the students to not panic and to utilise official re-evaluation process if they noticed inconsistency between their performance and digital sheets.

Social media users were quick to note that principals from multiple regions used the exact same words and phrases in their messages.

Principal of Delhi Public School, Siliguri, Anisha Sharma, described OSM as a “significant step towards adapting technology” that is fair and transparent.

Sarika Singh, principal of a school in Surat, stated that 98 lakh answer sheets have been digitalised, a figure also stated by government officials, claiming the system minimises administrative errors.

Leena Nair, principal of New Era Senior Secondary School, Vadodara, echoed terms like “standardised, transparent and eco-friendly”. In some of the videos, principals were visibly reading from a script on camera.

Allegations of Forced Support

The controversy has been extended with reports stating that the students are now being forced to support and join the campaign. A Reddit used claimed teachers were forcing students to post publically on Instagram stating that they had no problem with OSM checking. Additionally, a video allegedly from a Kendriya Vidyalaya in Imphal showed minors being used to promote the system as “just” and “unbiased”, gaining massive public backlash for using children for government promotion.

This discourse escalated after class 12 students alleged that scanned copies of answer sheets did not match their handwriting, raising fears of massive system mismatch. There are also questions regarding the award of the digital evaluation contract to Coempt Edutech (formerly known as Globarena Technologies).

Lok Sabha leader of opposition, Rahul Gandhi has alleged a nexus between the government, and the firm, questioning why background checks are bypassed. CBSE has diminished this allegation by stating them as “erroneous, misleading and not based on facts”. Records indicate the CBSE laid-back norms for OSM in the third tender after previous rounds failed to attract bidders.

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has taken personal responsibility for discrepancies, while maintaining that OSM is a progressive instrument for transparency. The government has secured an expert team from IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras to examine the system’s rollout along with digitalising roughly 40 crore pages from 9.8 million answer scripts belonging to 1.7 million students.

The government as also integrated the payment gateway with four public sector banks, SBI, Indian Bank, Bank of Baroda, and Canara Bank, to streamline post-result service payments and launched a 24x7 post-result support system for students.

While the government promised that no concern will go unresolved, the scripted toolkits have left the public questioning the Board’s commitment and genuine transparency.