Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday directed a team of professors and technical experts from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Madras and IIT Kanpur to help the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) resolve glitches in its post-results services portal, amid complaints from students and parents over technical issues in the re-evaluation process and lower-than-expected grades in Class 12 examinations under the new digital evaluation system.
“The expert team will implement focused technological improvements to the systems and technical workflow and will specifically examine portal stability and server performance,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The team will also examine the strength of the overall IT infrastructure and help take corrective actions to ensure that login authentication/user access systems/payment gateways are accurate and tidy,” he added.
The statement reiterated that “the interests of students remain paramount” and stressed that CBSE must take all necessary corrective measures on priority to ensure a “transparent, efficient and student-friendly system”.
Concerns after grade 12 results drop
This development comes days after the CBSE Class 12 results, announced on May 13, saw the overall pass percentage fall to 85.20%, down 3.19 percentage points from 88.39% last year – the lowest since 2019. The intervention comes in the wake of widespread complaints from several students and parents over the marks awarded in some subjects, with many expressing doubts over whether their answer sheets had been properly assessed under Council’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) System.
High demand for re-evaluation
Two days later, on May 15, CBSE announced revised post-result procedures, allowing students to first get scanned copies of their assessed answer books before applying for mark verification or re-evaluation. The application window for scanned copies opened on May 19. However, after reports of technical issues and heavy traffic on the portal, CBSE extended the deadline twice and finally postponed it till May 25 midnight.
This was the first full rollout of OSM, under which 9.866 million answer books were digitally assessed while 13,583 copies were manually scanned due to repeated scanning failing to produce clear images.
Students report errors, delays, and portal issues
The scale of the concern is reflected in the numbers: CBSE received 294,000 applications covering over 856,000 answer books, compared to 131,000 applications for 282,000 answer books last year.
For Sarvagya Singh from Bokaro in Jharkhand, the consequences are likely to be life-changing. The DPS Bokaro student scored 89.7%, well below the 93% he expected, including 71% in mathematics, a score he insists is impossible. “The end result is absolutely illogical. The minimum I got should never have dropped below 85%,” he said.
Singh said he paid $500 for scanned copies of five answer books but not yet received. The result threatens to cost him admission to the University of Hong Kong, which offered him an 80% scholarship, on the condition that he score 85% in mathematics.
He added, “I deliberately skipped JEE because I was preparing to join the University of Hong Kong. Because of this assessment, my scholarship dream has gone in vain and an entire year of my life may have been lost.”
Devesh Agarwal of Haldwani from Uttarakhand, who expected to score 94% but scored 85%, said the answer sheets he received after paying $600 “It looked as if someone had hurriedly tapped it off the phone.”
“Many of the pages were unclear, and I actually found more than 15 inconsistencies on four answer sheets,” he said.
“CBSE never told us that the answer sheets would come from the Gmail address. I found them lying in my spam folder,” he added.
A Delhi student, who topped her school in Class 10 with 97.4% but scored 93% in Class 12, said she is yet to receive scanned copies of six answer books despite her payment on May 21. “How can I raise objections when I can’t even see my answer sheets?” she asked, adding that she finally placed her order at 2.45am because the portal kept crashing during the day.
The principal of a private school in Delhi blamed the hasty implementation of OSM.
“Firstly, CBSE awarded low marks due to incorrect checking under the new system. The checking started almost a month after the exams because the scanning took too long, and assessors were pressured to check copies quickly. Teachers were not properly trained, many pages were missed, and marks were not awarded even for correct answers. Students seeking re-evaluation are now facing technical errors, payment failures, and frequent malfunctions. CBSE implemented this system in a hurry and we are witnessing the chaos unleashed by OSM,” the principal said, requesting anonymity.
Pradhan and Sitharaman discuss reform of CBSE Bank’s payment gateway
Pradhan spoke to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to seek her ministry’s support to reform the CBSE payment gateway system. In a statement on Sunday, the education ministry said four public sector banks — State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank and Indian Bank — will help the ECB “establish robust payment protocols to ensure timely payments, address payment glitches, and provide automatic refunds for overpayments.”
