CBSE Rolls Out On-Screen Marking for Class XII; Exam Reform Faces Teething Issues

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) implemented the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class XII just a week before the start of the final examinations of nearly 18 lakh students in February 2026. The system replaces the conventional physical evaluation of answer scripts with a fully digital framework, in which answer-books are scanned and evaluated on screen by examiners, with marks captured directly into a software platform.

OSM is intended to bring efficiency, traceability and uniformity to answer-book evaluation, reduce manual errors in totalling and improve speed of result preparation. However, the rollout was followed by complaints about blurred or partial scans, missing pages, payment failures for examiners, answer-sheet mismatches and concerns about cybersecurity. Critics have pointed out that only a single three-day dry run with five schools was conducted in January 2026 and no pilot was held across CBSE regional offices before national rollout.

The episode has highlighted that large public examination systems require phased implementation, stress testing under real conditions, robust teacher training, reliable infrastructure across urban and rural centres and clear grievance-redress mechanisms. The wider debate it has triggered fits into the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020’s push for technology-enabled assessment and the work of bodies such as PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) under NCERT.

For exam aspirants, the issue is useful as an example of governance challenges in digital transformation, the role of CBSE under the Ministry of Education, and the practical limits of e-governance projects when scaled without adequate preparation.