Govt transfers top CBSE officials
The Govt has also appointed a one-member panel to investigate procurement of OSM system
The Union Government on Tuesday transferred two top officials of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) following alleged irregularities in the Class 12 digital evaluation system and ordered a probe by a high-powered committee to investigate how the national educational board procured these marking services. Their replacements were announced late in the evening.
CBSE chairman Rahul Singh and secretary Himanshu Gupta were transferred and were replaced by senior bureaucrats Lokhande Prashant Sitaram and Varun Bhardwaj, respectively. Singh, a 1996 batch Bihar cadre IAS, was transferred as Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, while Gupta, a 2012 batch AGMUT IAS, and was transferred with immediate effect to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Sitaram is an AGMUT cadre 2001 IAS serving as Additional Secretary in Union Home Ministry till date while Bhardwaj is a 2008 batch Indian Information Services officer.
The Government also formed a one-member committee to inquire into matters relating to the procurement of services for the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system by the CBSE. The committee will be chaired by S Radha Chauhan, Chairperson, Capacity Building Commission, a memorandum issued by the Cabinet Secretariat said on Tuesday.
Chauhan has been empowered to obtain the assistance of officials from other departments, as required, while the Capacity Building Commission will provide secretarial assistance to the panel.
The committee will submit its report to the Department of Personnel and Training within one month.
The move comes after weeks of scrutiny over CBSE’s evaluation and post-result processes, which sparked concerns among students, parents and teachers across the country in the wake of irregularities in the digital evaluation system for the class 12 examination process.
Concerns were raised by students and parents over the implementation of the OSM system in the CBSE board examination process. The board has faced criticism over technical glitches, payment failures and delays in the verification and re-evaluation process, prompting demands for greater transparency and accountability.
The board has faced criticism over technical glitches, payment failures and delays in its verification and re-evaluation process, prompting demands for greater transparency and accountability.
