Education Minister meets officials to review ‘key priorities’ to strengthen CBSE

On Monday, Union Education Minister Pralhad Joshi convened an official meeting to address controversies surrounding the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). The primary focus of the discussion was to review key priorities aimed at strengthening CBSE's academic, examination, and administrative processes, with an emphasis on enhancing efficiency, transparency, and improved support for students and teachers.

The meeting underscored the mounting public scrutiny faced by CBSE, primarily due to its 2026 Class 12 board examination evaluation process, technological mismanagement, administrative failures, and a growing trust deficit among students.

A significant point of contention was the newly introduced on-screen marking system (OSM) for Class 12 answer sheets, which came under heavy criticism after students who applied for re-evaluation found that their scanned copies of answer books were not their own. Complaints included blurry and unreadable scans, missing pages, unchecked answers, calculation errors, and frequent portal crashes.

These issues have raised serious questions about the vendor selected for the OSM system – Coempt EduTeck, the same company responsible for the 2019 Telangana intermediate exam scandal.

Cybersecurity experts and ethical hackers have pointed out data privacy vulnerabilities in CBSE's digital evaluation infrastructure, highlighting a lack of robust archival architecture and the unauthorized exposure of sensitive student data. Review teams from prestigious institutions like IIT Chennai and IIT Kanpur have also weighed in, advising that ensuring the long-term security of CBSE's IT systems requires a comprehensive plan.

The Education Minister's statement on X, the microblogging platform, emphasized the need to rectify these issues, with a focus on improving the overall accountability and trust in the educational system.