Exam fail: Indian students complain en masse about marking errors in key final exams

A social media complaint about problems in India’s final school year exams has spiralled into a national controversy. Photograph: Hindustan Times/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A social media complaint about problems in India’s final school year exams has spiralled into a national controversy. Photograph: Hindustan Times/Getty Images Exam fail: Indian students complain en masse about marking errors in key final exams New digital marking system is aimed at reducing human errors but many students say it has resulted in wrong grades National outcry has erupted in India after more than 400,000 students have requested copies of their exam papers and answer sheets amid an outcry over marking errors in the country’s most important school-leaving exams. Within days of the grade 12 exam results being issued, students began reporting marking discrepancies they 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 more than 400,000 students to crosscheck the results. At least 1.7 million students sat the class 12 exams, which are key to university admissions. The board says the new on-screen marking (OSM) system is aimed at reducing human error and increasing efficiency. Instead, many students say it has resulted in wrong grades. In the new system, physical copies of answer sheets are scanned and uploaded to an online portal for teachers to evaluate, with a software then calculating the total mark. Some students said scanned answer sheets were incomplete or had missing pages, while others reported incorrect marking, blurry scans and mismatched answer sheets. One mother, Geetu Moza, posted on X that her daughter had lost at least 30 marks despite answers that “exactly matched the official answer”. “Do the authorities even understand what 30-35 marks can mean for a Class 12 student whose entire future and admission process depends on these scores?” she said. “This is playing with the careers, mental health and future of thousands of students.” The problem surfaced when Delhi student Vedant Srivastava said in a now viral post that the physics exam answer sheet sent to him after he requested it was not his. He said the handwriting differed and the paper contained answers he had not written. “I studied for an entire year. I sacrificed sleep, peace of mind, outings, everything for these exams,” he wrote. “And now I don’t even know whether my actual physics paper was checked.” Days later, the board emailed Srivastava what it called the “correct copy” of his answer sheet. Srivastava’s complaint triggered a flood of similar stories from students, many sharing screenshots they said showed incorrect marking, missing pages or papers that didn’t belong to them. The board announced the new marking system just eight days before exams began, leaving teachers scrambling to adapt to a major marking change. Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan acknow