Kozhikode: On 11 December 2024, a day before the class 11 mathematics mid-term exam under Kerala’s state education board, a tutor from MS Solutions, an ed-tech platform based in Koduvally, Kozhikode, uploaded a YouTube video with predictions for the exam.
“You can find this question in tomorrow’s paper for sure. It’s certain,” said C K Jishnu, the tutor, before presenting a problem on geometric progression: “How many terms of the G.P. 3, 3/2, 3/4, 3/8 are needed to give the sum 3069/512?”
The next day, the exact question appeared as the fifth item on the official exam paper, identical in wording, structure, and numerical detail.
This became a key exhibit in a crime branch investigation, led by Kozhikode district crime branch superintendent (SP) KK Moideenkutty, into the question paper leak.
Moideenkutty observed that the probability of reproducing such a specific formulation without access to the original paper was “not possible”.
The controversy drew renewed attention to earlier allegations against MS Solutions.
As early as 2023, teachers and opposition leaders had expressed concern about the platform’s methods and its growing role in exam preparation.
These concerns intensified in December 2024, when MS Solutions uploaded “prediction” videos for the class 10 English and class 11 mathematics half-yearly exams.
On 6 March 2025, after the Kerala High Court rejected his anticipatory bail plea, MS Solutions CEO Mohammad Shuhaib K surrendered to the crime branch in Kozhikode.
Speaking to Article 14, Shuhaib denied any wrongdoing. “These are baseless accusations stirred by a big company, whose name I won’t disclose, trying to destroy MS Solutions,” he said. “That company even offered Rs 5 lakh to a political leader to act against us.”
The government and police, however, charged MS Solutions with criminal breach of trust and cheating, citing evidence that questions appeared verbatim in “prediction” videos uploaded hours before exams.
Shuhaib insisted that his videos were merely predictions based on previous years’ question papers and that only two employees were allegedly involved in the leak.
Same Questions, Same Sequence
Shuhaib, in his anticipatory bail plea, claimed that other ed-tech companies, such as Xylem, Eduport, and Exam Winner, “published similar questions through YouTube channels as a prediction, and these questions came for the next examination”.
The prosecution, however, presented a transcript comparing Shuhaib’s video to the actual class 12 English paper, showing that questions 18 to 26 appeared in the same sequence in both.
A level of precision, the prosecutor argued, impossible without prior access.
Between 14 March and 12 May 2025, Article 14 interviewed the CEO of MS Solutions, the director of Xylem Learning, other ed-tech leaders, teachers’ associations, education experts, student union leaders, and students across Kerala.
Despite repeated requests, investigating officer K K Moideenkutty declined to respond substantively, first citing inconvenience over the phone, then a busy schedule when approached for an in-person meeting.
The accounts we gathered, supported by court and police records, revealed how exam ‘prediction’ crossed into organised malpractice, turning leaks into a marketplace, eroding public trust, and exposing how digital competition and corporate ambition threaten the foundation of Kerala’s public education system.
Reshaping Education
India’s education sector is rapidly corporatising, with a market valuation of $10.4–$12.75 billion as of December 2024 and projections of $30–$61 billion by 2030–2035, growing at over 15% annually.
The country hosts over 17,000 ed-tech firms, of which seven are unicorns (valued at over a billion US dollars)—second only to the US with 13 unicorns—including BYJU’S, Unacademy, Physics Wallah and Xylem Learning.
In a sign of industry consolidation, Physics Wallah, in 2023, acquired a 50% stake in Kerala-based Xylem for Rs 500 crore ($61 million).
As of May 2025, India had 68,181 coaching centres, including 1,455 in Kerala. The state’s largest concentrations are in Thiruvananthapuram (252), Kozhikode (198), and Thrissur (174).
In 2020 alone, 9,838 ed-tech startups launched, but 2,148 shut down in the last five years, reflecting high competition and market volatility.
Amid this heightened competition, reports of exam question leaks in Kerala’s education sector began to circulate among students, teachers and parents.
It turned out the so-called “predictions” weren’t clever guesswork, but leaks.
A Peon Begins The Leak
The investigation into MS solutions gained momentum after the commissioner of examinations and director of general education sent a formal letter to the crime branch headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram.
The letter alleged, “The questions in the question papers of the second terminal examination of 2023 and of the first and second terminal examinations in 2024 were released in the YouTube channel of 'MS Solutions' hours before the start of the examination under the name 'question prediction'.”
Following this, the crime branch registered a case under sections 316(2), 316(3), and 316(5) (criminal breach of trust), 318(2) and 318(4) (cheating), 61(2)(a) (criminal conspiracy), and 3(5) (if done with common intention, all are equally liable) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, including criminal breach of trust and cheating.
The investigation focused on Muhammad Shuhaib K, CEO of MS Solutions, who was arrested and held in judicial custody from 6 March to 28 March 2025, when he was granted bail.
The leak began with Elanjol Abdul Nassar, 36, a peon at Maadin Higher Secondary School, Melmuri, an unaided school in the Malappuram district, who had been entrusted with handling sealed question papers at the school.
Instead, according to superintendent Moideenkutty, he broke them open, photographed them, and sent the images via WhatsApp to Fahad, an English teacher at MS Solutions and a former headmaster of the same school, who then used them for content on YouTube.
In addition to Nassar, Jishnu, the maths teacher at MS Solutions, was also arrested.
Kerala Students Union (KSU) Kozhikode district president V T Sooraj alleged that, despite the company’s announcement of halting classes, MS Solutions released another prediction video, which also came under scrutiny. Sooraj stated that “32 out of 40” questions in the class 10 chemistry mid-term appeared in MS Solutions’ video.
Even while Shuhaib was in custody, MS Solutions continued operations through a WhatsApp group with over 70,000 followers.
Students were offered “prediction” material for a price, turning education into a marketplace. The offers included “SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) most expected questions with answers” for Rs 199. Students were instructed to contact a group member and pay via QR code, to receive PDFs of probable questions and answers.
The promotional poster featured Shuhaib’s image, despite his arrest. One group message read: “Do not study just to get an A+… study with purpose and focus. If your family falls apart, you should be able to look after them until their last breath and ensure their happiness as if they were gold. For that, you need a good job. To achieve it, study hard.”
Political Capital
Srikanth K, state organising secretary of the Higher Secondary School Teachers’ Association, said that in Kerala’s political landscape SSLC results are more than academic indicators. He pointed out that the government invests significant effort in Grade 10 outcomes, not only to showcase educational quality but also to leverage high pass percentages as political capital.
A high SSLC pass percentage is showcased to compare favourably against national averages and to surpass the performance of the previous Congress-led government, under Oommen Chandy, who was CM from May 2011 to May 2016.
Since then, Pinarayi Vijayan has been the CM of Kerala in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led government.
Despite the scale of the MS Solutions breach, political reactions were muted.
M Sivaprasad, the Kerala state president of the Students’ Federation of India, the student wing of the ruling CPI(M) government, described it to Article 14 as “an isolated incident involving a peon from an unaided school”.
“It wasn’t orchestrated by any entities connected to the government, be it the DIET, BRC, or even the question paper printing press. Had it emerged from any of these official channels, we might have released a statewide statement,” said Sivaprasad. “But when the breach is the result of one individual’s unethical choice, the government cannot be directly held accountable.”
Sivaprasad, seeking to defend the state government, contrasted it with the leak of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), an online entrance exam for medical courses, which he said “put the National Testing Agency’s entire structure under scrutiny.”
‘It’s About Profit’
In the NEET case, question papers were leaked and sold to candidates for Rs 30–50 lakh ahead of the 5 May 2024 exam, with the main accused, Sanjeev Mukhiya, arrested only after nearly eleven months.
“It’s commendable that the crime branch traced the source so quickly,” Sivaprasad said, referring to the Kerala case, where police identified and arrested the main accused soon after the leak.
“These platforms are run by corporate players operating across the nation,” he said. “Thus, a uniform regulation must come from the national level.”
Sivaprasad said that this did not absolve the state government. “We know these companies aren’t driven by a passion for children’s education,” he said. “It’s about profit.”
This reaction was in stark contrast to that in a similar case in December 2020, when ten packets each of English, economics, and accountancy question papers for the class 11 improvement board exams—supplementary tests that allow students to improve their marks after the main examination—were stolen from Kuzhimanna Higher Secondary School in Malappuram district.
The Pinarayi government’s response was swift and severe: the director of general education ordered the recovery of over Rs 3,800,000 from four employees, including the principal, two deputy chief superintendents, and the night watchman, and suspended all four.
Perpetrator At Large
Five years on, principal D Geetha and teacher Muhammadali T told Article 14 they continued to receive only a reduced provisional pension, with Geetha’s monthly pension cut to Rs 30,000 and Rs 950,000 deducted from her benefits.
Both have been denied death-cum-retirement gratuity, the lump-sum owed on retirement. Geetha’s legal challenge to the recovery remains pending in the Kerala High Court.
The police obtained CCTV footage of the thief, but the actual perpetrator was never arrested.
Teachers’ associations condemned the move, arguing that scapegoating staff for systemic security lapses was both unjust and ineffective.
The reaction was more severe in this case because the theft involved final class 11 improvement board exam papers, prompting statewide cancellation and re-conduct of exams and resulting in a direct financial loss to the exchequer.
In contrast, the MS Solutions leak involved an unaided institution in Malappuram.
Breaches Despite Safeguards
Although the same exam was written by students statewide, the government did not classify this as a violation of its formal exam protocols.
There were no administrative penalties for the school’s principal or teachers, nor was a re-exam ordered.
Instead, the government focused on criminal prosecution rather than administrative penalties, reflecting a distinction not just between board and mid-term exams, but also between leaks from unaided schools and those from government or aided schools, even though Justice P V Kunhikrishnan noted, all breaches undermine public trust in the examination process.
At a press briefing on 16 December 2024, education minister V Sivankutty confirmed an internal probe.
Sivankutty said that “classified protocols” were followed for SSLC exams.
“The question papers are printed at the Government Central Press, stored in state treasuries, and escorted to schools under police protection,” said Sivankutty. “These packets remain sealed and untouched until the day of the examination.”
Despite these safeguards, the breach exposed system-level gaps in security.
What Students Say
Prediction videos from corporate coaching platforms are extremely popular among students in Kerala.
A session for class nine students by Xylem on 16 December 2024, during mid-term exams, drew over 62,000 live viewers on YouTube—a first in Kerala’s ed-tech sector. Xylem highlighted this milestone, underscoring the competition among educational providers to capture student viewership.
“One of my friends told me to watch MS’s video… Correct-correct questions from the discussed video will be there for the exam,” said K*, a class 12 student from a government school in Atholi, Kozhikode district. The student’s full name is withheld as he is a minor.
“MS puts questions directly and in sequence,” said K. “It’s easier for us to look them up.” Asked if he thought that amounted to a leak, K replied, “Ha, ha. Yeah. They are.”
M*, a class 11 student at a government aided school in Poovambayi, Kozhikode district, told Article 14 that Xylem’s live classes ran from 5 pm to 3 am on the eve of the board exams, with up to 10,000 students logged in.
He said that students’ cameras stayed off, teachers lectured to the screen for hours and that interaction was limited to typed comments.
“We get a 45-minute break to break the Ramadan fast, but there’s no dinner break,” he said. “If we want to eat, we just pause, eat, and rewind to catch up on the marathon.”
M had subscribed to Xylem’s paid app for a one-time payment of Rs 4,000.
“My friends told me, ‘Only the questions discussed in their live classes came in the exam.’ That’s when I started watching them,” he said, adding that the exam was at 1:30 PM, leaving little time for rest. “I got only about four to five hours of sleep.”
Despite their political differences, both Swahib Muhammad, MSF (Muslim Students Federation) Kozhikode, Jilla general secretary, and V T Sooraj, KSU Kozhikode president, expressed concern.
“The performance of Malayali students in CUET (common university entrance test) and national-level entrance exams is tragically poor. They’re spoon-fed by ed-tech platforms,” said Swahib Muhammad. “They don’t learn the concepts, they just prepare to pass.”
Sooraj added, “Back in the 2014 NEET exam, around 46 Malayali students were among the top 100, and six of the top 10 were from Kerala. But in 2020, only 11 Malayali students made it into the top 1000. Our education system, once a model, is now cracking.”
Education Held Hostage
A leaked December 2023 phone call between Shuhaib and Abdul Hakeem, a chemistry teacher at Chakkalakkal School, Madavoor in Kozhikode district, turned abusive when Hakeem questioned MS Solutions’ predictions.
“Are you trying to blackmail me? Who said I’m leaking question papers, you son of a b*?” Shuhaib shouted.
Hakeem alleged that for Rs 500, parents received PDFs via WhatsApp containing answer keys to upcoming exams. “No effort to disguise. Just cold commerce,” he said.
The line between public education and private enterprise is becoming increasingly blurred. Promotions for tuition platforms now seep into official state-sponsored spaces.
A certificate issued to Xylem by the Kozhikode Municipal Corporation during Vijayolsavam 2024—an annual government-backed event in Kerala celebrating academic achievers and those behind their success—featured the tagline “Xylem; South India’s No. 1 Educational Platform,” and bore signatures including that of mayor Beena Philip.
Such endorsements reflect a deeper institutional shift, where public legitimacy is leveraged to amplify the influence of private players, often without scrutiny or regulation.
On 12 May 2025, 45 days after securing bail, Shuhaib spoke to Article 14 by phone. “I run a company with 48 staff. Two employees are allegedly involved in the leak,” he said. “If you look at the last three years, I predicted just three or four questions each time, always based on previous years’ papers. That’s all.”
He described a system with minimal oversight: “There was no HR, thus no clear checks while selecting faculty.”
Shuhaib said he had stepped down as CEO, with a new appointee to be revealed by November. He said he would focus on MS Solutions’ YouTube channel as its public face.
To end allegations of exam paper leaks from being treated as an institutional failure, Kerala’s department of general education announced a digital lock system and an automated question paper generating system, which will encrypt and randomise questions.
The plan remains aspirational, with no formal implementation date or government order in place.
*Names changed to protect the identity of minors
(Arun V B, Milind Prakash, and Ritish Pandit are independent journalists.)
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