The NEET paper leaks sparked outrage that shook the nation. Reflexively, the government established a high-powered task force to revamp the examination system in India. Helmed by Nandan Nilekani, it plans to embed education technology (EdTech) to create a leak-proof assessment system.

However, this movement towards EdTech is just a digital bandage on a systemic infection. Stop there, and we have just made a flawed system faster, not better. The deeper structural issues, laid down by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, demand a complete revamp of how we assess our students. Policymakers and EdTech developers both need to confront whether assessment technology should reinforce the status-quo of high-stakes testing or help actualise the more distributed, competency-based evaluation system that the NEP envisions.

India’s educational concerns

India has a rote learning problem. A World Bank study found that 70% of classroom instructions were devoted to traditional lectures and rote learning, providing persistent barriers to student-centred pedagogy. Rote learning has been proven to not improve cognitive flexibility, deep understanding or critical thinking. To address this head-on, the NEP 2020 articulated an ambitious shift towards competency-based learning and foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). 

However, standardised assessments have been a choke point for these goals. PARAKH found that as students reach higher grades and face high-stakes tests, teaching often shifts to rote learning and short-term recall. Such teaching helps students pass exams, but they slow down FLN progress and fail to drive competency-based learning. 

Effective assessments prioritise learning over scoring efficiency. EdTech should reflect this approach as well. But standardised technological systems, instead of challenging the status quo, are often designed to scale an assessment practice that is already problematic. This further worsens the learning crisis. 

The perils of assessment standardisation are also captured well in the American education system’s technodeterministic approach. The introduction of Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) technology cemented the multiple-choice question (MCQ) format as the default of American assessment. The MCQ format was initially hailed as a democratic tool to create efficiency and remove subjective bias. But as it became technologically boosted, its pedagogical costs amplified. The OMR-enabled bubble sheet deprioritised the demonstration of reasoning. More perniciously, it forced teachers to “teach to the test”, narrowing the curricula to what OMR could grade. The measurement technology effectively changed what was being measured, and in turn, what was being taught. 

India does not need to repeat this pattern. Whether it is rote-based evaluation or MCQs, the risk is the same — EdTech built for standardising a flawed system only amplifies its issues.

Improving system design for competency-based learning

The 2026 OSM controversy laid bare the state’s tendency to equate EdTech success with administrative efficiency. EdTech designed for assessments should rise above this and ask one central question: What are we actually assessing our students for?

To achieve NEP 2020’s vision for competency-based learning, NITI Aayog and PARAKH suggest competency-based assessments (CBAs). CBAs focus on skills, not content. This allows students to demonstrate their problem-solving and conceptual capacities. An ORF study shows that multiformat assessment methods, like interpretation exercises and scenario-based tasks, can help high-stakes exams ask better application-oriented and analytical questions. This reflects NEP 2020’s recommendation to focus assessments on higher-order skills. 

EdTech can greatly support multidimensional assessment systems and learning pathways. The priority should lie in encouraging holistic forms of expression — a core principle of CBAs. To understand this principle, EdTech creators need only peer into the real-world experience of an exam. Consider the freedom of an empty paper. A student may build a physics derivation around the formula or emphasise the underlying principle. They may write in the margins, between the lines, or create unexpected connections that the marking scheme may not even anticipate. Any digital layer placed over this free canvas should encourage this range, not standardise it away. 

EdTech-enabled CBAs transform exams from being administrative checkpoints into useful pedagogical tools. They also make education accessible. For instance, digital writing and editing tools make long-form answers more accessible to students with disabilities like ADHD and dyslexia. Other tools like digital whiteboards, speech-to-text tools, and video annotation layers help teachers set creative questions that test multiple competencies and enable analytical thinking. 

Leveraging EdTech better

First, to create new EdTech, India must adopt a “Pedagogy-first” approach. Thus, participatory co-creation becomes crucial. Teachers should receive training to articulate their needs, understand which tools enable classroom learning and assessments, and help design and implement technological solutions. Policymakers should hold themselves accountable for long-term learning outcomes as much as for administrative metrics, and thus participate in technology design. Without deliberation across the board, EdTech tools, regardless of their promise, will at best become unusable infrastructure and at worst work against policy and learning goals.

Second, EdTech investment must shift towards the classroom. When tools are embedded where education is directly experienced, they unlock a rich tapestry of assessment methodologies that ensure holistic learning. Teachers should be given the agency to employ EdTech effectively to measure classroom learning. For instance, simple tools like calculators and projectors help teachers shift from rote-based evaluation to more complex testing.

Third, for existing EdTech like the OSM portal, a re-evaluation of outcomes must precede further scale-up. Implementation cannot be mistaken for success. India needs to return to first principles, asking what problem each tool was meant to solve, whether it has actually moved the needle on the policy outcomes it was designed for, and where gaps remain unaddressed. The state should conduct the necessary due-diligence to only procure tools that align with learning outcomes. This recalibration of needs, not the tools themselves, should drive redesign.

However, EdTech design is only half the battle. The bottleneck is not technology — it is institutional courage. Courage to invest in teachers, in classrooms, and letting go of centralised technological systems. Our youth have already displayed their courage in demanding a better education system. Now is the chance for the state to do that as well.