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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Credibility Crisis

For years, Faizal Khan, known across the country by his affectionate moniker of ‘Khan Sir,’ has cultivated the image of an educator fighting a noble battle against an exploitative coaching industry. To millions of students, he is not merely a teacher but a folk hero, someone who is an outsider challenging entrenched interests while offering affordable education to the masses. But the recent episode surrounding the attack on Khan Global Studies in Patna raise uncomfortable questions and casts...

Credibility Crisis

For years, Faizal Khan, known across the country by his affectionate moniker of ‘Khan Sir,’ has cultivated the image of an educator fighting a noble battle against an exploitative coaching industry. To millions of students, he is not merely a teacher but a folk hero, someone who is an outsider challenging entrenched interests while offering affordable education to the masses. But the recent episode surrounding the attack on Khan Global Studies in Patna raise uncomfortable questions and casts a shadow on the educator’s reputation. According to reports, a group of men allegedly vandalised the coaching institute, pelted stones and assaulted a security guard. But the controversy did not end there. Soon after the incident, Khan claimed that seven to ten rounds of firing had taken place outside his institute. The allegation dramatically escalated the seriousness of the episode. His claim generated headlines, social media outrage and a wave of sympathy. Yet police investigations reportedly found no evidence of firing by the attackers. CCTV footage and local inquiries also failed to substantiate the claim. Then came a more troubling development. A video surfaced allegedly showing two security guards associated with Khan Global Studies had fired shots into the air. The guards have since been arrested. While the investigation is still underway, the sequence of events is, at the very least, fishy. If police are ultimately correct that there was no firing by the attackers, then how did such a dramatic narrative emerge? Why were claims of multiple rounds being fired presented with such certainty? Why did the alleged gunfire become the centrepiece of public messaging immediately after the attack? Khan’s rivals have claiming that it was the educator himself who orchestrated the attack to gain sympathy as his fortunes were flagging. While the truth of these allegations have yet to be proved, it is worth noting that the modern coaching industry is not merely an educational enterprise but also a business of branding whose teachers are celebrities. Coaching centres compete for market share, social media attention and student enrolments. Success stories turn into marketing campaigns. And victimhood can sometimes become a marketing campaign too. Indeed, the most striking feature of the episode is not the vandalism itself but the rush to construct a story of persecution before the facts were known. The suggestion that shadowy rivals sought to silence a successful educator fit neatly into an existing public image. It generated precisely the sort of public sympathy that influential personalities often enjoy. Students deserve better. They look to educators not merely for knowledge but for intellectual honesty. A teacher’s first duty is respect for facts. The Patna incident should therefore serve as a reminder that celebrity status cannot become a substitute for credibility. The damage will extend beyond one coaching institute or Khan’s reputation. It will damage trust itself. And for a teacher, there is no greater loss.

The Boy Who Audited CBSE

A Class 12 student from Ranchi has done what few journalists, bureaucrats or politicians thought to do. Whereas most Indian teenagers spend their final year of school navigating the familiar maze of examinations and career anxieties, Sarthak Sidhant, a Class 12 student from Ranchi, Jharkhand, forensically examined the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.


Sidhant’s expose of the CBSE marking system has turned him into an overnight and unlikely public figure, with his X posts gaining millions of views. His story began with a personal grievance when, like other students, Sidhant requested scanned copies of his answer sheets after the declaration of results.


However, what he received were blurred and incomplete scans that raised questions about the evaluation process. While many students would have beaten their heads against a wall in frustration, the doughty Sarthak did something radically different.


In a remarkable exercise in citizen-led investigation, Sidhant claims to have reviewed all 576 CBSE tenders available in the public domain. He compared procurement records, examined successive rounds of bidding documents and scrutinised technical specifications linked to the CBSE’s digital evaluation system.


He put his painstaking detective work in a lengthy blog post that alleged significant changes in eligibility and technical requirements across multiple tender rounds. Sarthak’s blog quickly escaped the confines of education forums and student groups and took social media by storm, attracting the attention of journalists and policy observers, and eventually entered the political arena.


Opposition leaders seized upon the findings to target the Central government. The controversy has snowballed enough to draw scrutiny from Parliament itself. For a teenager, it was an extraordinary trajectory.


What makes Sidhant's intervention notable is not just the allegations that he raised but the method he employed. In an age dominated by outrage and viral claims, Sarthak’s approach was stubbornly old-fashioned, worthy of the best investigative journalism out there.


His blog is dense with technical aspects like procurement clauses, certification requirements and contract provisions. His findings focused on a series of changes in CBSE’s tendering process, pointing to alterations in performance-related clauses, financial qualification requirements and technical certifications.


Sidhant alleged that some safeguards present in earlier versions of the tender documents were diluted or removed in later iterations. The questions that he has raised have proved difficult to ignore.


What is perhaps most striking is the contrast between Sidhant and the institution that he has challenged. India’s examination system is among the largest administrative exercises in the world. Every year, millions of students entrust their futures to boards and testing agencies.


Sidhant’s intervention comes at a moment when confidence in India’s examination system is under unprecedented strain, particularly following the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak scam that exposed a massive racket and led to the eventual cancellation of the examination for more than 22 lakh aspirants.


The CBSE fiasco, which followed the NEET scandal, has deepened public scepticism about the ability of educational authorities to conduct fair and transparent assessments.


Against this backdrop, Sidhant’s investigation struck a nerve. Students and parents have grown accustomed to seeing examination boards and testing agencies as distant bureaucracies whose decisions are rarely challenged.


Now, Sarthak’s inquiry has demonstrated that transparency can be achieved not just through official audits but through determined public inquiry as well. His investigation also reflects the emergence of a new kind of civic participant, who is technologically savvy and highly capable of sifting and making sense of the abundant and public records that are increasingly accessible.


Sidhant’s collaboration with ethical hacker Nisarg Adhikari resembled a miniature investigative newsroom. His appearance before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education marks an extraordinary moment. For it is not every day that a school student finds himself presenting findings on procurement processes and examination systems before lawmakers.


In another era, Sarthak’s observations might have remained confined (and later buried or forgotten) to a letter to a school principal or senior authorities. But today’s students inhabit a different world whose digital dynamic has altered the relationship between the state and its citizens. Today’s students can access records, compare documents and publish their findings before institutions have even formulated a response to any gaffe on their part.


India’s examination authorities administer the futures of millions of students each year. They have an equally big obligation to be transparent to them. Sarthak Sidhant’s story suggests that when institutions fail to explain themselves adequately, students may begin investigating them instead.

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