'Shattered Dreams of Millions': Ex-Civil Servants Say Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan Must Resign

New Delhi: A group of 73 former civil servants who have served in the All-India services and the central services, under the banner of the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), have demanded the resignation of Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, expressing their deep anguish and outrage over the “repeated, monumental failures  in the conduct of national level examinations”, under his watch.

“These systemic collapses have shattered the dreams and futures of millions of young Indians and severely eroded public trust in one of the most critical components of our democracy – the public  education and merit system,” read the open letter undersigned by members of the group.

The retired civil servants condemned how the integrity of India’s apex testing and evaluation bodies stand “completely compromised” in light of the recent NEET-UG paper leak episode, which they say, undermined the aspirations of over 23 lakh students who had spent years in rigorous preparation. 

“We are amazed that, every year, for several years, the same kind of flaws continue to occur in the NEET examination – that  some candidates gain prior access to the exam paper through paper leaks, obviously as a result of  bribes and chicanery. Why the National Testing Agency tasked with holding the NEET examinations is unable to rectify these flaws is inexplicable!” they wrote.

“In its obsession with centralised  testing and selection systems, the Union government has paid scant regard to the dictum that  decentralised functioning distributes risks and eliminates the chances of catastrophic, universal  failures.”

The group also pointed out that the repeated requests of the governments of Tamil Nadu and other states to allow states to carry out selection of candidates for undergraduate and higher studies were ignored by the Union government, leading to the present situation.

Further, they highlighted the fiasco around the new On Screen Marking (OSM) digital evaluation for the CBSE Class 12 examinations which was marred by frequent portal crashes, missing digital pages, mismatched answer sheets and erroneous marking, especially in the core STEM subjects (Physics, Chemistry and  Mathematics). 

“The undue administrative haste in introducing this system led to an unprecedented  drop in overall pass percentages and a sharp, inexplicable decline in top-tier scores compared to  previous academic years. The resulting deluge of reevaluation applications put pressure on  regional boards and led to panic amongst students and their families,” the CCG wrote. 

They expressed shock at how some enterprising students, aided by ethical hackers, discovered flaws in the online systems, including security flaws, and found that the company entrusted with implementing the system – Coempt – had previously been blacklisted by the Telangana government.  

“What was even more disturbing was that tender conditions had been tweaked to enable this company to secure the contract, not once, not twice, but three times! The third change removed  some requirements critical to the quality of the digital exercise. Feedback in the limited beta testing was ignored along with suggestions for a later rollout,” 

The removal of the CBSE Chairman and Secretary following all these discoveries, the CCG said, was “too little too late” as there were deeper policy blind spots, lack of rigorous beta testing and oversight failures. 

“We do not believe that the CBSE Chairman and Secretary alone could have been solely  responsible for changing the tender conditions,” they said, adding that there must have been some interest expressed from higher up. 

“When lakhs of students and their families suffer immense mental agony and financial strain due to preventable lapses in high-stakes examinations – examinations that dictate livelihoods and social mobility – those at the helm cannot abdicate their constitutional  duties and evade responsibility for avoidable lapses. They cannot hold only officials responsible.”

The group has demanded that Pradhan, either resign owning responsibility for the current mess or the Prime Minister should relieve him of his charge.

They have also urged a thorough, time-bound, and independent judicial or expert review of the National Testing  Agency (NTA) and the CBSE evaluation ecosystem be undertaken; and strict, state of the art security and cryptographic protocols against question paper leaks and rigorous, third-party audits of all digital evaluation software be implemented before  national rollouts.

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