Days after the announcement of CBSE Class 12 results, the Ministry of Education on Sunday (May 17, 2026) dismissed concerns of the ‘On Screen Marking’ (OSM) evaluation system affecting students’ scores. They maintained that it is an internationally accepted norm which enables “transparent evaluation”.
The Board has reduced the revaluation and answer sheet verification charges to ₹100, the Ministry said.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Wednesday (May 13, 2026) released the Class 12 board examination results which recorded a slight dip in the overall pass percentage in 2026 in comparison to last year. The national pass percentage stands at 85.20%, a drop of 3.19% from last year’s 88.39%.
At a press conference, School Education Secretary, Ministry of Education, Sanjay Kumar said, “98 lakh sheets scanned were for class 12, three levels of security were followed during the process. It was found that despite repeated scanning, there were still some legibility issues because the ink used in some answer sheets was of a very light colour. Even after scanning, those scripts could not be made fully legible.”
“In such cases, the examiners were instructed to evaluate the scripts manually and award marks accordingly. More than 13,000 such answer sheets were separately identified and manually checked. After manual evaluation, the marks obtained were entered into the system,” Mr. Kumar added.
Revaluation costs reduced
The Ministry also announced that the costs for revaluation of the answer sheets have been reduced to ₹100 from ₹700 and ₹500, respectively.
“The CBSE has decided this time that if students wish to view their answer sheets, they can do so by paying a fee of ₹100 instead of ₹700. If they want verification or validation of the answer sheet, that too will cost Rs 100 instead of Rs 500. If they want any particular answer rechecked, the fee will be ₹25 per question,” Mr. Kumar said.
“We have decided that if during re-evaluation, a student’s marks increase, then the amount paid for re-evaluation will be refunded to the student,” he said.
A total of 17,68,968 students appeared in the CBSE board examinations for Class 12. Over 94,000 students scored above 90%, with more than 17,000 candidates securing marks above 95%.
Among the regions, Trivandrum leads the charts with a staggering 95.62% pass rate, followed closely by Chennai and Bengaluru. Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh has the lowest pass percentage at 72.43%.
With PTI inputs