CBSE DEBACLE WITH STATISTICS
The Central Board of Secondary Education took the Board examination of 18 lakh students this year. The examination was held for Class 12th where the schools affiliated to the Central Board allowed their students to sit for the exam. More than 5% students scored marks above 90% while 15% students failed in the examination process.
This is, probably, the first time over years that only 0.97% students have scored marks above 95%. Large number of students who have not done well or have failed in the Board are putting this on the marking system that has changed this time. The Central Board used to evaluate the marksheets of the candidates through a traditional manually checking approach. This time the Central Board has gone with a On-Screen Marking (OSM) approach where the evaluators have to ally with a marking scheme that’s completely different from the traditional approach.
In the digital marking system, there is a scanner on the answer sheet which is used to take the evaluators to a checking portal. The Evaluators have to check the answer sheet on the screen which’ll come up due to the scanner. The evaluators while they are checking straight from the screen have to update the marks in the portal itself. Since the portal is not traditional and the marking software is new to the evaluators, loads of evaluators found the software quite glitchy.
It was difficult to place the correct software because the Central Board of Secondary Education announced the starting date of 15th February in haste. The pass percentage of the Class 12th CBSE exam is lowest this year in four years. The students can see the pass percentage of the last four years as follows -
- 2026 - 85.20 %
- 2025 - 88.39 %
- 2024 - 87.98 %
- 2023 - 87.83 %
The biggest thing that might hurt the evaluation process is having no actual proof that kind of blunder happened in the evaluation process.
Students who are not satisfied with their results can apply for Re-evaluation from 18th May.