NAGAPATTINAM: Manithaneya Makkal Katchi (MMK) president and Nagapattinam MLA M H Jawahirullah on Monday said that glitches in CBSE’s newly introduced On Screen Marking (OSM) system had severely affected students’ prospects, and demanded the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and other officials.

In a statement, Jawahirullah said the CBSE introduced the OSM system this year for evaluating Class 12 public examination answer sheets, but the 13,000 answer sheets uploaded through the system were unreadable and had to be evaluated manually later.

Due to this, several students reportedly received low marks and the overall pass percentage declined, causing concern among students and parents, he said.

He further claimed that discrepancies came to light when many students applied for re-totaling, allegedly revealing that answer sheets had not been properly evaluated.

“Students who worked hard are now unable to secure admission in premier institutions such as IITs and NITs because of these irregularities,” he said.

Jawahirullah also referred to allegations raised by a student from Jharkhand that rules were relaxed in favour of a private company during the tender process for the CBSE on-screen marking system, stating that such accusations could not be ignored.

Holding the Union government morally responsible for “ruining the future of students”, he demanded that the Union Education Minister and all officials connected with the alleged CBSE evaluation irregularities resign from their posts.

He further alleged that irregularities had occurred in examinations including NEET, CBSE, SSC and CUET, and claimed that students from south India were among the worst affected. He added that the incidents once again proved that entrance examinations were unnecessary.