Hyderabad: Hundreds of schools across the country, including government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, posted social media videos defending the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) controversial on-screen marking (OSM) system after regional offices of the board circulated a scripted toolkit to school principals.
The toolkit, a document titled “Material for Principals,” contained ready-to-read scripts and talking points that principals were asked to use in their videos, the Hindustan Times reported
The document urged principals to describe CBSE as “highly proactive, empathetic, and communicative” and to reassure students and parents that “no child will be allowed to suffer due to a technical error.” Principals were also directed to tell students who found discrepancies between their performance and their answer sheets to use the board’s official re-evaluation process.
Same talking points, sometimes verbatim
In several Instagram reels, reviewed by Siasat.com following HT’s report, principals and teachers across the country were found repeating near-identical lines. Anisha Sharma, principal of Delhi Public School Siliguri, Veena Nair of New Era School Baroda, Sarita Singh of Shreeya Devi Bhagirath Rathi Maheshwari Vidyapeeth in Surat, Dr Jyoti Gupta of KR Mangalam World School in Delhi, Sisir Prasad Raulo of Vikash Residential School in Bargarh, and the principals of Cygnus World School and Remal Public School were among those found using phrases that matched the circulated script, many a time verbatim.
“CBSE is committed to making evaluation more transparent, accurate and technology-driven. This year, nearly 98 lakh answer sheets were digitised, a major milestone in the implementation of on-screen marking (OSM), which helps reduce clerical errors and improve transparency. We acknowledge concerns raised by some students and parents regarding blurred answer sheets and technical glitches… Every answer sheet will be reviewed fairly and transparently,” many of them said in almost identical videos.
A senior CBSE official denied any role, telling HT, “We did not instruct anybody to post any video in our favour.”
As of May 26, nearly 4.5 lakh – roughly one in four – of the approximately 18 lakh Class 12 students had applied for scanned copies of their answer books, a spike of over 208 per cent compared to last year.
Three tenders, a lowered bar
The scripted video row comes alongside a separate HT investigation raising questions about how the OSM contract was awarded.
CBSE floated three successive tenders for the system before finding a qualified vendor, according to documents reviewed by HT. It received no bids in the first round, failed to find a technically eligible bidder in the second and in the third – issued in August 2025, just six months before nationwide deployment – relaxed several key requirements.
The minimum scanning resolution was reduced from 300 DPI to 200 DPI, the mandatory Capability Maturity Model Integration certification was lowered from Level 5 to Level 3 and the requirement for robotic scanning infrastructure was dropped altogether.
Both TCS and Coempt Edu Teck cleared the technical round in the third tender. Coempt emerged as the successful bidder as the lowest financial bidder. Teachers who participated in a pre-rollout dry run in January had separately warned CBSE that the system needed at least a year or two of further preparation before nationwide implementation.
Of nearly one crore answer books evaluated, 68,018 had to be rescanned due to poor image quality and 13,583 were checked manually after repeated scanning failed to produce legible copies.
Rahul Gandhi demands probe
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday, May 29, shared HT‘s tender report and demanded an independent judicial inquiry. “CBSE called for OSM tenders thrice. Zero bids the first time. No qualified bidder the second time. And finally, the technical bar was lowered until Coempt could clear it,” Gandhi posted on X, questioning why the contract went to Coempt over TCS.
“The futures of 18.5 lakh children were handed to a company that could only qualify after the rules were bent for it,” he said, calling for the probe to be expanded to all contracts awarded to Coempt.
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