In a significant shift that could redefine how India’s largest school board evaluates its students, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that from 2026, there will be no post-result verification of marks for Class 12 board examinations.The announcement came during a live webcast conducted by the Board on Friday, where Dr. Sanyam Bhardwaj, Controller of Examinations, laid out the roadmap for sweeping digital reforms set to be implemented in the 2026 board examinations.The session, streamed live on the official YouTube channel of CBSE at 11 am, was not just yet another circular in webinar form. It was an elaborately prepared orientation for principals, teachers and examination staff across all its affiliated schools, with clear instructions that they all attend it. Schools are told to arrange screens and sound systems, internet connectivity at their places — and even upload a geotagged group photograph of the participants on the ASAR app after the session.The message couldn’t be clearer: the exam system is changing — going digital — for both students and teachers.A digital leap for Class 12Lying at the heart of reform is the rollout of OSM for Class 12 answer scripts.Under the new system, evaluated answer sheets will be digitised. Marks will be entered online and transmitted directly to a central server. The goal, explained Dr. Bhardwaj, is to eliminate human errors, ensure uniformity in marking and even monitoring of the evaluation process.The scale of the exercise underlines why digitisation is being seen as inevitable. This year alone:• Number of Class 12 students: 18,59,479• Number of answer books: 1,00,44,295• Number of subjects: 120Managing more than one crore answer books manually has long been a logistical nightmare. The Board expects OSM to bring precision and speed to a system that affects nearly two million young lives every year.What changes for students?The biggest headliner is: no verification of marks after the result declaration.In the older system, students would seek verification to check for discrepancies in the whole numbers or missing numbers. In the new scheme of digital evaluation, CBSE claims such discrepancies would be eliminated at the outset.According to the Board, the benefits include:• No totalling, posting, or uploading errors• No unevaluated answers• No cross-checking needed for the evaluators• No comparison of answer books at offices of CBSE• Cleaner evaluation – no touching, no dust• Faster evaluation period: shortening it to 9 days rather than the original 12 days• Savings in transportation time and cost• Environmentally sustainable digital processes For students increasingly frantically checking results pages every year, the promise is plain and simple: more accuracy, fewer delays, and fewer chances of clerical error.What changes for teachers?This reform is equally transformative for the evaluator.Now teachers need to mark the answer scripts they are assigned to mark digitally. The need to total the marks and cross-check the entries is taken off their shoulders. This is the main claim of the Board.“Teachers would not be needed for post-result verification work. They would only attend classes,” is what the presentation emphasized.The digital platform is also facilitating wider participation of teachers, including those from outside the country. With the help of multiple login sessions, unlimited familiarisation workshops, videos, standard operating procedures, and even a call centre, the transition is meant to be easy.Beyond Class 12: Wider reforms for 2026Other structural changes were also explained in the webcast:• Introduction of a second board examination in Class 10• Division of question papers of Science and Social Studies at Class 10• Strengthening guidelines for the conduct and evaluation of examinationsCBSE said the reforms were not overnight. Before taking the final call, the Board conducted lessons from past experiences, redesigned systems, carried out dry runs, identified glitches, took stakeholder feedback, conducted global testing, and reinforced safety and security protocols.It was only after the synchronizing of policies and technology that the Board moved ahead, Dr. Bhardwaj said.A forward-looking board The tone of the session seemed to suggest that CBSE treated this as something more than just a technological upgrade; it’s a structural correction for a high-stakes ecosystem. Every year, with near 18.6 lakh students waiting for their Class 12 results, even a small clerical mistake can snowball into anxiety, appeals, and administrative backlogs. The new system tries to eliminate those stress points.For students, this means trusting a digital process where all marks are accounted for before an outcome is declared.It means sharper “teacher skills” and less paperwork.For the Board, it means a drift towards transparency and efficiency.As Dr. Bhardwaj signed off, schools were reminded of uploading geotagged photographs of school attendances and emailing queries on respective email IDs.The message was procedural, but the inference was significant: India’s board examination process is moving to a completely digital era.
