A national outcry has erupted in India after more than 400,000 students requested copies of their exam papers and answer sheets amid outrage over marking errors in the country’s most important school-leaving exams.
Within days of the release of Class 12 exam results, students started reporting marking anomalies linked to a new digital marking system.
The government-run Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) says it has received requests for 1.1 million answer sheet copies from over 400,000 students to check the results. At least 1.7 million students took the Class 12 exams, which are important for university admission.
The board says the new on-screen marking (OSM) system aims to reduce human error and increase efficiency. Instead, many students say it has resulted in inaccurate grades.
In the new system, physical copies of answer sheets are scanned and uploaded to an online portal for teachers’ evaluation, after which a software calculates the total marks.
Some students said the scanned answer sheets were incomplete or had pages missing, while others reported incorrect marking, blurry scans and mismatched answer sheets.
Geetu Moza, a mother, posted on X that her daughter had lost at least 30 points despite the answers “exactly matching the official answers”.
“Do the officials even understand what 30-35 marks can mean for a Class 12 student, whose entire future and admission process depends on these marks?” He said. “This is jeopardizing the careers, mental health and future of thousands of students.”
The problem came to light when Delhi student Vedant Srivastava said in a viral post that the Physics exam answer sheet sent to him after his request was not his. He said the handwriting was different and there were answers in the paper which he had not written.
He wrote, “I studied for a whole year. I gave up sleep, peace of mind, travel, everything for these examinations.” “And now I don’t even know if my actual physics paper was checked or not.”
A few days later, the board emailed Srivastava a “corrected copy” of his answer sheet.
Srivastava’s complaint sparked a flood of similar stories from students, with many sharing screenshots that showed incorrect marking, missing pages or papers that did not belong to them.
The board announced the new marking system just eight days before the start of the exams, leaving teachers struggling to adapt to a major marking change.
Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan acknowledged “some inconsistencies” in the new system. “I take responsibility for this and assure you that it will be resolved,” he said.