The corruption behind the chaos came into question only after various social media exposes by students themselves. Vedant Srivastava, a 12th<\/sup> grader, was confused about his really low physics marks and applied for re-evaluation; on receiving his scanned answer-sheet, he realized they were not even his answer-sheets! They had a different handwriting! He made a post on X, which triggered the media attention to the issue. The Sanghi-IT-Cell-Gundas immediately thronged the timeline and branded this 17 year old as anti-national\/Pakistani before CBSE itself publicly admitted its mistake.<\/p>\n The pass-percentage has dipped over 3%, an all-time low. Over 20 students have died by suicide because of the sheer greed and recklessness of CBSE and the company involved. India ranks one of the highest nation in terms of suicides due to academic pressure; the pressure of a lifetime is placed on the shoulder of mere 17 year old. When they underperform, let alone fail, they are treated like criminals and denied opportunities for higher education. Forget the education system as a whole, what happens when just a part of it \u2013 evaluation – is corrupt? Are there any real consequences other than namesake transfers or resignations?<\/p>\n Despite the CBSE corruption and NEET paper leaks the Education Minister, the position-holders in NTA and NCERT have not been suspended or removed. But imagine you enter the NEET exam room with your earrings still on, you will be reprimanded severely! You may never write the exam again.<\/p>\n The CBSE brought in On Screen Marking (OSM), replacing manual correction, with the rationale of transparency and reduced human error. The board proposed that it would also make accessing students\u2019 paper easier during re-evaluation \u2013 as an act of transparency. However, the OSM resulted in the mismanagement of answer-sheets resulting in the series of consequences shouldered by our children.<\/p>\n So, what went wrong?<\/p>\n Usually, the board examination papers are dispersed across regional offices, then sent to the exam center\u2019s nodal officer (usually the Principal) who will distribute it to the examiners. The examiners will evaluate the papers using the marking scheme and blueprint given to them. Now, the papers will be collected and sent to a private company that will scan the sheets and upload them on to the OSM software using which the examiners will evaluate from their respective centers.<\/p>\n The CBSE does not own such technology, and the natural step seems to be to privatize the process. The NEP advises for all the school boards to transform their evaluation process to a more data-driven and competency based process; if and when such transformations require private intervention, it must be sought! In alignment with such instruction, the CBSE sold our students out on a tender to CoEmpt Edutek.<\/p>\n Time and again, over and over, we are told that \u2018private\u2019 is more efficient and less corrupt than the \u2018government\u2019. Think of what has happened to the education system since the increase of private schools \u2013 arbitrary fee hikes, lower salaries for teachers, no accountability for quality education.<\/p>\n And within the examination sphere \u2013 the formation of National Testing Agency (autonomous body under Ministry of Higher Education) by the BJP government was supposed to reduce the corruption and increase the accountability. Registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860, it is only by name a government body, on paper and functionally it is a full blown corporate company. The crisis of entrance examination, which was previously felt only by JEE and UPSC aspirants, is now a brunt shouldered by most students stepping into higher education because of NTA.<\/p>\n The NTA conducts all of its examinations through private companies; it leaves out a tender even for the very last scrap piece in its premises to the private dogs. From the security standing outside NEET exam centers to the waste paper disposal after the exams, every single process is given to private companies in tenders.<\/p>\n Further, these entrance examinations create more private markets (like that of coaching centers) to exploit the poor students of India who believe that education will solve their poverty. It becomes clear that NTA<\/p>\n Post-NTA – we have seen the worsening of medical seat mafia post-NEET, the leaking of NET paper in 2023, even in 2026 thousands of students appearing for the CUET-UG faced technical glitches that prevented them from completing the paper, these are just some examples within the \u2018examination sphere\u2019.<\/p>\n In this context, the CBSE decides to privatise arguably the most important examination in the country and hand over the fates of lakhs of students to a private company \u2013 CoEmpt Edutek. Before getting into the nitty gritties of this revolting corruption, it is important to note that this is not the fault of a singular private company\u2019s corruption. It cannot be so simplistically singled out as such. The other company in the OSM tender race, Tata Consultancy Services, are the ones responsible for this year\u2019s technical glitches in CUET-UG. Such corruption is inherent to capitalism.<\/p>\n The corruption private companies<\/strong><\/p>\n CoEmpt was previously known as Globarena Techonological Solution. The company has a history of mishandling student data, especially when it comes to government tenders. In 2019, they mishandled the release of Intermediate exam results in Andhra Pradesh and got blacklisted. Within 6 months, they changed their name to Coempt Edutek Pvt Ltd which made them a new corporate entity and not in the blacklist. The bourgeosie laws systematically allow such corruption to take place and favours the private entities no matter what.<\/p>\n CBSE released 3 tenders for the OSM implementation company. It changed and relaxed multiple requirements and clauses in the final tender (as opposed to the original tender) to favour Coempt Edutek.<\/p>\n The CBSE changed the rules allowing companies that were \u201cpreviously blacklisted\u201d and have a \u2018record of poor performance\u2019 to participate in tenders! When a company is found to be involved in corruption, they are not allowed to procure tenders for a few years as a punitive measure. This is called the cool-off period. CBSE reduced this period from 2 years to 1 year. Why must a relaxation to allow corrupt companies even be made?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/senkanal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Transferred-CBSE-President-and-Secreatary.png\"){kind=spacer}
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