CBSE Is More Focused On PR Stunt Like Supreme Leader Instead Of Future Of Students. Why CBSE Chairman Must Be Sacked

In the scorching summer of 2026, while lakhs of Class 12 students in India stared at their CBSE results in disbelief — many watching their dreams of IITs, NEET, CUET, or even basic college admissions crumble — the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) was busy orchestrating something far more sinister than a mere technical glitch. It was launching a full-blown PR stunt, complete with scripted videos, coordinated talking points, and a “social media toolkit” that would make any authoritarian regime proud. This wasn’t damage control. This was narrative management at its most cynical. And at the centre of this circus sits Rahul Singh, IAS (1996-batch, Bihar cadre) — the current Chairman of CBSE, a career bureaucrat whose primary skill, it seems, is protecting institutional image rather than protecting the future of India’s youth.

This is not an isolated failure. This is the rotten core of how India’s Civil Services — particularly the IAS lobby — have captured every institution that matters. They treat education, like everything else, as a fiefdom to be managed for optics, promotions, and post-retirement sinecures, while the real stakeholders — students, parents, and taxpayers — pay the price in blood, sweat, and crushed futures.

The OSM Debacle: From “Modernisation” to National Scandal

Let us recount the facts, end-to-end, without mincing words.

In 2026, CBSE rolled out its much-hyped On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for Class 12 board examinations. The board sold it as a revolutionary leap: faster results, reduced human error, greater transparency, standardised marking, and digitised answer sheets. The stated goal was modernisation. The hidden reality was a hasty, ill-tested, contractor-driven experiment that collapsed under its own weight.

Within days of the results, the floodgates opened:

• Missing Pages & Cut-Off Diagrams: Entire answer sheets pages vanished in the scans. Supplementary sheets disappeared. Graphs, diagrams, and detailed workings in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Accountancy were simply not visible to evaluators. Students who had meticulously drawn flowcharts and labelled diagrams received zero credit for them.
• Blurred & Unreadable Scans: Thousands reported illegible images. Handwriting became indistinguishable blobs. Evaluators allegedly marked what they couldn’t even read properly.
• Mismatched Answer Sheets: Students opened their digital copies only to find someone else’s handwriting, different roll numbers, or pages from entirely different candidates. Some saw answer sheets that looked nothing like their own.
• Unusual & Devastating Marks: Toppers in school exams and pre-boards scored shockingly low. Students who cleared JEE Main or NEET qualifiers suddenly “failed” or scored in single digits in board subjects. Pass percentage dropped sharply from 88.39% last year to 85.29%. The number of 90+ scorers collapsed.
• Re-evaluation Portal Collapse: When students rushed to verification and re-checking, the portal crashed repeatedly. Payments failed. Servers went down. Login issues became routine. CBSE later had to rope in IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, and PSU banks just to stabilise the chaos they themselves created.

CBSE admitted to rescanning over 68,000 answer books due to poor image quality. An internal trial run in January 2026 at five Delhi schools had already flagged 36 technical, operational, and evaluation red flags — including “blind checking” concerns and serious glitches. Yet the board ignored every warning and went ahead with nationwide rollout. No proper nationwide pilot. No domain expert oversight. Just bureaucratic arrogance.

This wasn’t a “teething problem.” This was criminal negligence with the futures of over 1.7 million students.

The PR Stunt: When “Supreme Leader” Mode Takes Over

Instead of launching a massive audit, publishing raw data of errors, apologising publicly, and fixing the system, what did CBSE do?

It activated PR mode.

Regional offices allegedly sent a “social media toolkit” and suggested scripts to school principals — including Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas. Principals were instructed to record videos and post messages defending OSM. The language was eerily identical across hundreds of videos: “transparency”, “efficiency”, “technology-driven reform”, “proactive and empathetic board”, “teething issues only”, “no child will suffer due to technical error”, “revaluation is the official safety net”.

Students and parents were allegedly encouraged — or subtly pressured — to record supportive testimonials even while their own results were devastating. Coordinated positive messaging flooded platforms exactly when complaints were peaking. The focus shifted from fixing evaluation disasters to saving the board’s image.

This wasn’t organic support. This was a centrally coordinated damage-control exercise that critics rightly labelled a “PR stunt” or “social media toolkit”. Media outlets like Hindustan Times, NDTV, and others exposed the scripts and the pressure on principals. CBSE’s official denial rings hollow when the evidence of identical phrasing and sudden surge of defensive videos is there for everyone to see.

Chairman Rahul Singh and his team behaved exactly like a “Supreme Leader” — more obsessed with perception management than with accountability. While students protested outside CBSE headquarters and filed PILs in the Allahabad High Court alleging violation of Articles 14 and 21, the board was busy scripting reels.

The IAS Lobby: Ruling India Like a Colonial Bureaucracy

Rahul Singh is not an educationist. He is a 1996-batch IAS officer of the Bihar cadre — a classic product of the Indian Administrative Service, the same steel frame that was supposed to serve the nation but has instead become a self-perpetuating elite club.

This is the deeper malaise.

India’s Civil Services — especially the IAS — have captured critical institutions like CBSE, UGC, AICTE, and even universities. These officers, trained in generalist administration, rotate through districts, secretariats, and boards without any deep domain expertise. Education becomes just another “posting”. Their real priorities?

• Maintaining hierarchy
• Protecting institutional reputation
• Securing extensions, promotions, and post-retirement jobs
• Managing optics for political masters

Core issues — curriculum reform, teacher training, fair evaluation, mental health of students — take a backseat. When things go wrong, the default response is PR, denial, and deflection. Exactly what we saw in the OSM fiasco.

This is why Indians are paying through their noses in taxes.

Every rupee of your income tax, GST, cess, surcharge, and indirect taxes funds not just governance but the lavish perks, foreign junkets, palatial bungalows, security details, pensions, and post-retirement sinecures of this bureaucratic class. You pay for their air-conditioned offices, their drivers, their medical facilities, their children’s education in elite schools, while your own child’s board exam answer sheet is blurred beyond recognition and their future is sacrificed at the altar of “administrative convenience”.

The IAS lobby has mastered the art of zero accountability. They play with the lives of 25 million students who appear for CBSE exams every year, knowing fully well that board marks decide college admissions, scholarships, jobs, and lifelong trajectories. One blurred scan, one mismatched sheet, one arrogant PR exercise — and an entire generation’s aspirations are derailed.

Why Such Officers Deserve Immediate Termination and Forfeiture of All Benefits

Rahul Singh and every senior officer involved in this OSM disaster must face immediate termination.

Not transfer. Not extension. Not “voluntary retirement”.

Sacking.

And not just sacking — forfeiture of all salaries, perks, facilities, pensions, and post-retirement benefits earned during their tenure. Public money cannot be wasted on those who treat public institutions as personal PR playgrounds.

Why? Because this is not a minor lapse. This is gross negligence that has caused measurable, irreversible harm to lakhs of young Indians. It is a betrayal of the social contract between the state and its citizens. When a private company’s software fails and destroys customer lives, we demand compensation and heads to roll. When the government’s own board does the same to the nation’s children, we get scripted Instagram reels.

The IAS must be reminded: you are servants of the Constitution, not masters. You exist because taxpayers fund you. Your job is to solve problems, not to manage headlines.

If the government truly believes in “Viksit Bharat” and “student-first” policies, it must start by sacking the very people who have turned CBSE into a PR factory. Anything less is complicity.

The students of 2026 are not asking for sympathy. They are demanding justice.

And justice begins with the immediate removal of Rahul Singh, IAS, as CBSE Chairman — along with every officer who thought a “social media toolkit” was more important than a child’s future.

India’s youth deserve better. India’s taxpayers deserve better. India deserves better than this IAS-led PR circus masquerading as governance.