Political Turmoil Surrounds CBSE as Congress Criticizes Education Minister

The political landscape surrounding the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) intensified on Wednesday as Congress leader Jairam Ramesh escalated his criticism against Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Ramesh accused the minister of shamelessly clinging to his position despite ongoing evidence of incompetence. In a social media post, he referenced multiple reports highlighting irregularities in the CBSE evaluation process, alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to protect the minister despite these failures.

 

Ramesh pointed out that although there have been changes in CBSE's leadership, Minister Pradhan remains stubbornly in his role, ignoring the evidence of incompetence and corruption within his ministry. He claimed a lack of transparency in the board's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system and accused CBSE officials of failing to respond to inquiries raised by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education regarding procurement processes.

 

According to media reports, the CBSE was unable to address questions posed by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, led by Digvijaya Singh, concerning the procurement of the OSM system. These inquiries arose after the committee questioned 18-year-old student Sarthak Siddhant, who first exposed corruption in the tender process via social media. This reflects a severe lack of accountability at the highest levels of CBSE and the Ministry of Education. Furthermore, investigations revealed that warnings issued during the system's dry run, which advised delaying the adoption of OSM until technical issues were resolved, were largely ignored by the board.

 

Ramesh noted that an investigation into the trial run of the OSM system revealed that many participants identified flaws and requested that implementation be postponed until all issues were addressed and evaluators trained. Not only did CBSE disregard this prudent advice, but it also failed to resolve several specific concerns raised by participants.

 

Additionally, Ramesh alleged that CBSE repeatedly missed deadlines for re-evaluation and faced accessibility issues with its portal, leading to growing frustration among students. He emphasized that it is already known that CBSE has consistently failed to meet its own deadlines for re-evaluating students' question papers. Initially set for May 29, the deadline was pushed back, and the board failed to meet its own June 1 deadline. When the portal finally opened on June 2, many students encountered difficulties accessing it and making payments.

 

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