NEW DELHI: The regional offices of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) distributed a social media toolkit to school principals this week, directing them to defend the board’s controversial screen-tagging system on social media, and hundreds of schools – including the government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas – subsequently posted videos echoing the talking points, HT found.
A document entitled “Materials for School Principals”, seen by HT, included texts of what to read. At one point, she urged school administrators to describe the board as “very proactive, empathetic and communicative regarding these emerging issues.”
One of the readings I included for school administrators read: “As with the rollout of any technology on such an unprecedented scale, I know that some hurdles in implementation have caused concern… Please, do not panic. I want to reassure every student and parent that no child will be allowed to suffer because of a technical error.”
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School principals have also been asked to tell students that if they find “a discrepancy between your performance and your reflection on the digital paper”, they should use the official CBSE re-evaluation process.
In several videos – most of which were posted on Instagram – reviewed by HT, students and school administrators appear to repeat phrases that closely resemble the language in the document circulating, including the quote above.
But not all school principals complied. “I have seen that Instagram has been flooded with school principals supporting CBSE and the OSM process even though I know very well the problems it is causing for students. The head of our regional office has sent me a ‘Materials for School Principals’ document. However, I feel that we must express the anxiety, stress and suffering of students as their careers are at stake. Hence, I have not made any video for CBSE’s OSM,” said a principal of a private school in Delhi, who requested anonymity.
Among the institutions that posted videos, Kendriya Vidyalaya and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya schools – both run by the central government under the Education Ministry – were prominent.
A video posted by Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1 at Gorakhpur Air Force Station shows a Class XII student defending the regime. “I am satisfied with the marks I got in all subjects. The problems faced by students are a new phenomenon as every year students face such problems. I don’t think OSM is the problem,” says the student.
Lead lawyer Pandey told HT that the video reflects the school’s decision. “Students can share their opinions in this controversy and it was the decision of our school staff that we should post our students’ opinion on OSM on social media,” Pandey said, denying that the school had followed the toolkit.
A video posted by Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Jajpur shows director-in-charge Abhimanyu Bhatt defending the system.
“OSM is a very good initiative of CBSE… Proper evaluation of answers was done… Teachers got plenty of time to read everything. Class 10 students should also benefit from OSM in the coming years,” says Bhatt, editing the talking points in the text.
Anisha Sharma, principal of Delhi Public School Siliguri, said in a video that the OSM was introduced “with a positive outlook keeping in mind that the evaluation will be fair, accurate, faster and transparent” — using phrases that were verbatim in the document.
The Materials for Headteachers document states: “From an academic point of view, OSM has fundamentally improved the structural integrity of our assessments… It frees our assessors to focus strictly on content rather than numeracy, paving the way for a more standardized, transparent and environmentally friendly assessment process in line with the National Education Policy.”
A CBSE spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. A senior official, who requested anonymity, said: “We did not ask anyone to publish any video for us.”
As of 26 May, nearly one in four of the nearly 1.8 million students sitting the Grade 12 exam had applied for scanned copies of their answer books, representing a more than 208% increase in applications compared to last year. CBSE partly attributed the rise to the sharp fee cut announced on May 17.
