Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday slammed the Centre over the CBSE re-evaluation process and associated costs, alleging that the education system is being run like a business where students are forced to pay for correcting institutional errors.
Sharing a video clip of his interaction with CBSE students affected by issues linked to the Board’s On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, Gandhi alleged that students are being unfairly burdened by re-evaluation expenses.
“Beware of pickpockets - today, they are sitting right inside the CBSE. If your marks are incorrect due to a CBSE error, what do you get? A bill: Digital scanned copy: Rs. 100 per subject. Re-totalling: Rs. 100 per paper. Re-evaluation: Rs. 25 per question,” Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.
A student may have to spend up to Rs 2,000 merely to ensure accurate evaluation of their answer sheet, Gandhi claimed, while questioning the revenue generated by the Board through re-evaluation requests.
“Just imagine the revenue CBSE is generating when 400,000 students have submitted such applications,” he said.
Referring to alleged technical flaws in the evaluation process, Gandhi said errors were inevitable if answer sheets were scanned using mobile phones, with students ultimately paying to rectify mistakes.
“The mistake belongs to the CBSE. The punishment falls on the student. The profit goes to the government,” the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said.
“When education is treated not as a service, but as a business, errors are not corrected - they are multiplied.
And the heaviest price for this is being paid by our children - with their time, their self-confidence, and their future,” he added.
The Congress leader’s remarks came amid complaints from several Class 12 students over mismatched answer sheets uploaded during the revaluation process.
This is the second video Gandhi has shared from his interaction with students. On Sunday, he had accused the Centre of failing to respond to concerns raised by students affected by the OSM controversy.
The CBSE has since said cases involving alleged mismatched answer sheets are being treated on “top priority”, while experts from IIT-Madras, IIT-Kanpur and the Digital Infrastructure Corporation of India (DICI) are examining the system and strengthening the portal and payment gateway integration, according to government sources.
Gandhi has also targeted Coempt, the company responsible for CBSE’s OSM process, alleging that it was previously embroiled in controversy under its former name, Globarena.
(With inputs from PTI)
