‘Defend OSM, Don’t Panic’: CBSE Circulates Messaging Toolkit To Schools Amid Backlash

A social media toolkit was circulated by the regional offices of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) this week for the school principals. In the toolkit, the principals were asked to defend the board’s controversial on-screen marking system online, according to a Hindustan Times report.

Following this, hundreds of schools, including government-run Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, posted videos amplifying the prescribed messaging.

According to Hindustan Times, the document was titled “Material for Principals”, and it included scripts of what to read out. The document appealed to the principals to describe the board as “highly proactive, empathetic, and communicative regarding these teething issues.”

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One of the read-outs for the school principals stated, “As with the rollout of any technology on such an unprecedented scale, I know that a few implementation bumps have caused concern… Please, do not panic. I want to reassure every student and parent that no child will be allowed to suffer due to a technical error.”

The document asked principals to tell students that if they found “a discrepancy between your performance and your reflection on the digital sheet”, they should opt for the official CBSE re-evaluation process.

According to Hindustan Times, in several videos and reels on Instagram, students and principals were seen repeating phrases that appeared similar to the directions in the circulated document.

How School Principals Responded To The Toolkit?

However, not all school principals followed the directions. “I saw that Instagram has been flooded with principals supporting CBSE and the OSM process despite knowing very well about the problems it caused to students. The document ‘Material for Principals’ was sent to me by the head of our regional office. However, I feel we should voice students’ concerns, stress and agony as their careers are at stake. Hence, I did not make any video in CBSE’s OSM favour,” said the principal of a Delhi-based private school, while speaking to HT.

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Among the institutions that shared such videos, schools under Kendriya Vidyalaya and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, both centrally run under the Ministry of Education, featured prominently.

Meanwhile, in another video shared by Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Jajpur, the principal-in-charge, Abhimanyu Bhatt, was seen defending the CBSE.

“OSM is a very good initiative by CBSE… proper evaluation of answers has been done… teachers got plenty of time to read each and everything. Class 10 students should also benefit from OSM in the coming years,” Bhatt said.

Meanwhile, Delhi Public School Siliguri principal Anisha Sharma said in a video that the OSM was introduced “with a positive outlook, keeping in mind that evaluation will be fair, accurate, faster and transparent”, language that matched the circulated document verbatim, Hindustan Times reported.

In the “Material for Principals” document, it was stated, “From an academic standpoint, the OSM system has fundamentally improved the structural integrity of our assessments… It frees up our evaluators to focus strictly on content rather than arithmetic, paving the way for a more standardised, transparent, and eco-friendly evaluation process aligned with the National Education Policy.”

CBSE OSM Controversy

The controversy began after several thousand students reported difficulties in accessing scanned copies of their evaluated answer sheets.

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Several students said that the documents were either blurred or partially visible, while others alleged that some responses were left unchecked or marked incorrectly. There were also widespread complaints of payment glitches and repeated portal crashes during periods of heavy traffic.

In response, CBSE extended the deadline for requesting scanned answer sheets and issued a statement asking students “not to feel anxious”, while assuring that all legitimate grievances would be examined by subject experts.