Exam fail: Indian students complain en masse about marking errors in key final exams | India
A national protest has broken out in India after more than 400,000 students demanded copies of exam papers and answer sheets amid protests over flagging errors in the country’s flagship school-leaving exams.
A few days after the 12th grade exam results were announced, students began reporting grading discrepancies, which they attributed to a new digital grading system.
The government-run Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) said it had requested 1.1 million answer sheet copies from over 400,000 students to cross-check their results. At least 1.7 million students took the 12th grade exams, which are important for university entrance.
The board says the new on-screen marking (OSM) system aims to reduce human error and increase efficiency. Instead, many students say it results in incorrect grades.
In the new system, physical copies of answer sheets are scanned and uploaded to an online portal through software for teachers to evaluate, and then the total grade is calculated.
Some students reported that their scanned answer sheets contained missing or missing pages, while others reported mismarking, blurry scanning, and mismatched answer sheets.
A mother named Geetu Moza shared on X that her daughter lost at least 30 points despite the answers “exactly matching the official answer.”
“Do the authorities understand what 30-35 points mean for a Grade 12 student whose entire future and admission process depends on these scores?” he said. “This is playing with the careers, mental health and futures of thousands of students.”
The issue arose when Delhi student Vedant Srivastava, in a now viral post, said that the physics exam answer sheet sent to him after he requested it was not his. He said the handwriting was different and the paper contained answers he did not write.
“I studied for a whole year. I sacrificed sleep, peace, trips, everything for these exams,” he wrote. “And now I don’t even know if my real physics homework is checked.”
Days later, the board emailed Srivastava with what it called a “correct copy” of the answer sheet.
Srivastava’s complaint prompted similar stories from students; It was said that many screenshots shared contained incorrect markings, missing pages, or papers that did not belong to them.
The board announced the new grading system just eight days before the start of exams, leaving teachers scrambling to adapt to a major grading change.
Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan acknowledged “some inconsistencies” in the new system. “I take responsibility for this and I can assure you that a solution will be found,” he said.
