SSC Exams Expose a Broken System Failing Millions of Aspirants

SSC aspirants vs Eduquity: Inside India's Exam Scandal

On July 31, 2025, the streets of Delhi turned into a battleground for justice. Outside the gates of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), thousands of aspirants and several prominent educators gathered with a simple demand: fairness in the conduct of the SSC exams, accountability, and the right to a future they had worked years to secure. Instead of answers, they were met with lathi charges and detentions. Their only “crime” was questioning an examination system plagued by inefficiency—one that sends students thousands of kilometres away from home only to subject them to delays, server crashes, and cancelled papers.

For many, the SSC exams had become less about testing knowledge and more about surviving chaos. SSC aspirant Isha Gupta said her 12th-level exam, scheduled between 1:30 pm and 2:30 pm, began an hour late. “We entered, and biometric was done, and till then everything was normal. Then we sat for the exam… but our exam hadn’t started till then. We sat there for a long time; they neither took our attendance nor started the exam,” she recalled. When the exam finally began around 2:30 pm, the system itself faltered. “The server of the exam centre was too slow… we had to click at least 3–4 times to make the system select one option,” she said, adding that her computer even crashed twice, leaving her staring at a black screen with just the SSC logo.

SSC Exams Marred by Chaos at Multiple Centres

If the first paper revealed cracks in the system, the second exposed a complete collapse. Isha explained that her graduation-level paper, scheduled for 5:30 pm, also began late as candidates were held up at biometric verification. “The gate closing was at 5:30, hence they should have taken the entry earlier. But as they left us very late from the first paper, the entry of the second paper also got delayed,” she said. According to her, only half the candidates managed to complete biometric verification on time. “The mistake is from their side; the candidate is on time. Taking the biometric is their job; they weren’t able to take the biometric by 5:30, and in between, their server also crashed.”

The mismanagement did not stop at delays during the SSC exams. Many candidates were allotted centres hundreds of kilometres from home, often in remote rural locations. “They are giving Delhi exam centres to Jammu candidates, and Jammu candidates are being given Delhi. They are sending them to some village or farm in remote locations,” Gupta said, adding that admit cards often arrived too late for students to make proper arrangements. “This time I got to know one day before the exam that my centre was here. If it had been far away, then I wouldn’t have been able to go.”

The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) is the backbone of India’s central recruitment system, the gateway through which millions of aspirants seek entry into government service each year. For many, clearing these exams is not just about employment—it represents stability, respect, and the dignity of serving the nation. That is why when the system falters, the damage is immense.

But in recent weeks, aspirants say even the basics were compromised. Faulty servers, poor facilities, and substandard exam materials turned an already stressful process into an ordeal. Another aspirant Mahil Tiwari recalled that something as simple as a pen and sheet became a struggle. “The pen and the sheet which we received were very… I don’t think they should have done cost-cutting on these things. That pen is so thin that you will not be able to find that pen anywhere in the market,” she said. The sheets were so flimsy that she folded her paper four times just to be able to write without it trembling on the desk. “It’s like we are fighting for every small and basic thing,” she added, questioning why a Group B examination could be conducted with such poor management.

Lakhs of Students Stranded by Application Failures

The problems began well before students reached exam halls. "Last year, nearly 36 lakh candidates applied for the SSC exams, but this year the number fell to about 30 lakh," stated Mahil. The difference, she says, is not disinterest but systemic collapse.

“The server is such that no matter what kind of exam centre we get, there is always a problem with the server,” said Mahil. She added that Aadhaar verification requirements and constant technical failures left lakhs unable to even complete their applications. “Many of the students are still going to the SSC office because their Aadhaar verification was not done. So they couldn’t fill the form. They were also wronged,” she explained.

For those who did make it inside exam centres, the ordeal was no less brutal. Students reported servers crashing mid-test, screens freezing, wrong answers being auto-submitted, and exams that began late only to be cut short before time. A system meant to test knowledge instead tested patience, resilience, and hope.

“It’s a very basic demand. If we are students and we are preparing, then we deserve that a fair examination has to be conducted, and Eduquity should be removed because the company does not have the capability to conduct examinations,” Mahil said. She stressed that the stakes are far higher than a single paper. “A whole year of a student gets wasted; it’s not only a year’s hardship, it is a hardship of many years.”

For her, and for lakhs of others, the first demand is simple: a fair exam.

Students Manhandled by Private Bouncers

What should have been a fair test of knowledge instead turned into scenes of chaos. At some centres, technical failures weren’t the only hurdle—students were manhandled by private bouncers, and scuffles even broke out inside exam halls. In Delhi, SSC aspirant Vishnu Nodal described how his exam day unfolded. He arrived at a centre in Karkardooma, completed his biometric check without issue, but found himself struggling with a computer screen too small to display questions properly. “Due to the small size of the PC, any question with a diagram required scrolling down. If they zoomed out, the question appeared so small that I had to go near the screen to read it,” he said. When he requested a change, staff delayed his request until all entries were complete, eventually moving him to a different system. By then, his exam began later than everyone else’s.

The real trouble, however, began with the second session. Vishnu said that when the biometric process failed, students pleaded with staff to complete it so their exam could go ahead. Instead, they were told to wait. “They said, ‘We will take your exam, and we will not let you go like this.’ After some time, someone came from the server room and said that the exam had started, then chaos occurred,” he recalled.

As frustrations rose, students who had already completed their biometric checks also left their labs in protest. That was when, Vishnu said, bouncers pushed candidates to maintain order, leaving one student bleeding from the nose. “After some time, the police commissioner came and took all of us down and said that they would conduct our exam. They again tried to do the entry procedure, but it didn’t happen,” he added. Eventually, candidates were told their exams would be rescheduled.

According to Vishnu, the centre was a picture of confusion from start to finish. “There was no proper timing to take entry; there was no account of where one was going. The invigilators who were present there did not have any knowledge of the system. Whomever we complained to, they used to say the concerned staff was coming. No one knew anything; no one knew about the password. The invigilator who was in our room said that they didn’t know what the password was,” he said, adding that even the pen and sheets provided were of “low quality.”

SSC Exams Rescheduled, But Students Forced to Drop Out

For many, the nightmare didn’t end inside the exam hall. Exams were casually cancelled and later “rescheduled”—as if candidates could simply pack their bags and travel hundreds of kilometres again. Vishnu said he had the names of 49 candidates whose exams were not conducted. “I received messages from some students saying their exam got rescheduled. My exam also got rescheduled,” he explained.

But for him, like many others, a second attempt was impossible. Having travelled from Jaipur to Delhi for the first round, he was then assigned a centre in Ghaziabad. “I didn’t go to give the exam again,” he admitted, adding that the travel cost and logistical hurdles were simply too much to bear.

From Delhi to smaller towns, SSC aspirants and educators have now taken to the streets. Their demands include an independent probe, removal of the exam vendor, compensation for losses, and reforms to restore credibility. “We are poor middle-class students. We prepare for many years, working hard throughout the year, and when the time comes to give the exam, they change our centre. That is why we burnt the statue of the education minister—so that our voices are heard. We want the chairman to listen to us and ensure that the millions of students appearing for the SSC exam do not have their future ruined,” stated a protesting aspirant Ashutosh Mishra.

SSC Exams and the Controversial Vendor

At the centre of the crisis is Eduquity Career Technologies, SSC’s newly appointed exam vendor. The firm, long accused of irregularities, was blacklisted in 2020 after recruitment exam scandals, and has been linked to paper leaks in Madhya Pradesh’s Patwari and Teacher Eligibility Tests as well as Maharashtra’s MBA CET controversy. Despite this track record, SSC awarded the company control over one of India’s most crucial examinations.

Maths educator Aditya Ranjan explained how this happened. “Earlier the SSC exams were conducted by TCS. Their vendor license expired in 2024, and though they extended services for a while, SSC needed a new vendor. Eduquity was brought in, even though they had already faced many accusations of paper leaks and mismanagement,” he said. According to Ranjan, rules were bent to allow Eduquity to qualify for bidding: “Bidding has rules—companies with a turnover above ₹100 crore are allowed to participate. Eduquity’s turnover was only ₹30 crore, so the requirement was reduced. They bid the lowest and that is how they entered the fray.”

SSC Re-Exams Fail to Restore Confidence

On August 29, SSC conducted re-examinations for thousands of students whose tests had collapsed amid technical failures. But many chose not to return. The cost of travelling again to distant centres proved unbearable, leaving aspirants exhausted and demoralised.

Ranjan explains that the SSC exams themselves were riddled with errors inside the papers, compounding the chaos beyond the external mismanagement. “There was chaos within the exam paper as well. There were many questions that already had answers ticked,” said Ranjan. “Approximately six to seven reasoning questions had answers already ticked. In some questions there were only three options, in some just two, and sometimes two identical options were given. Maths isn’t even part of the stenographer exam, but they asked math questions there.”

For many, the crisis goes beyond Eduquity. At its core lies the SSC itself, and above it, the Department of Personnel and Training. Both face accusations of ignoring chaos that has shattered the faith of millions. For students whose exams were cancelled or compromised, rescheduling is no justice—it is an afterthought.

Until accountability is fixed at the very top, aspirants and educators warn, protests will continue. Trust in one of India’s most important recruitment systems remains broken, and unless reforms are made, the SSC exams will remain a symbol of betrayal rather than opportunity.

(With special inputs from Prateek Das.)