Broken Trust |
India’s examination system is facing a crisis that goes far beyond marksheets, answer scripts or software glitches. What is now unfolding across major national examinations is a deeper collapse of institutional credibility at a moment when academic competition has become central to middle-class aspiration and social mobility. The controversy surrounding the digital evaluation of the CBSE examinations may appear, at first glance, to be a technical problem. Students have alleged mismatched answer sheets, incorrect uploads, missing pages and irregular evaluation patterns after the introduction of a new on-screen marking system. Separately, claims of cyber vulnerabilities have raised questions about whether sensitive academic data was adequately protected.
Authorities insist safeguards exist and that complaints are being reviewed. But the damage lies less in the individual errors than in the growing public perception that the system itself cannot be trusted. That perception has acquired sharper political and emotional force because it follows closely on the heels of the NEET examination controversy. The alleged paper leak in one of India’s most........