CBSE OSM row: Class 12 student Sarthak Sidhant appears before Parliamentary panel

A Class XII student affected by the Central Board of Secondary Education's (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) system has appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports on Tuesday (June 2) to submit his findings on how the OSM system was implemented and the alleged irregularities in the related tendering process.

According to an ANI report, quoting sources, the student, Sarthak Sidhant, is giving a presentation before the committee reviewing the OSM issue in the CBSE Class 12 examination.

Questions on tender process

Before appearing before the committee, Sarthak Sidhant alleged that his examination of several CBSE tender documents had uncovered inconsistencies that, he claimed, appeared to benefit a specific vendor.

"There were many discrepancies. I have just compared them. There were at least 15 discrepancies as per my blog. I would like to highlight three or four of them,” he said.

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Referring to the tender framework for the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, Sidhant claimed that key eligibility and compliance provisions had changed across successive bidding rounds.

He further stated that clauses linked to poor performance records, blacklisting, financial thresholds, CMMI certification requirements and project qualification norms were modified in later tenders.

Changes in eligibility clauses

"The first discrepancy is that in the old tender, there were three clauses of poor performance, that the service provider would be disqualified if they had poor performance. But in the new RFP, it was totally wiped out," he alleged.

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Sidhant said the findings were the result of research carried out with ethical hacker Nisarg Adhikari and journalists who had been examining the matter. He said he hoped the issue would contribute to improving transparency in both public procurement processes and systems used for educational assessment.

Concerns over rollout

The student maintained that his concerns were not directed against the OSM model itself, but against the manner in which it was introduced. He argued that broader testing and trial runs should have preceded its implementation.

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"I think OSM is a good change, but there should be wide rollouts first and good demo pilots," he said.

Apart from the OSM matter, the Parliamentary Standing Committee is also examining the implementation of the three-language formula for students in Classes 9 and 10.