Over 10Lstudents skipup boardexamsinfourdays
DROPPING OUT Close to 15% of registered examinees did not turn up, which experts say may be result of strict anticheating measures and could lead to a dip in pass percentage
ALLAHABAD: Over 10 lakh students have skipped the Uttar Pradesh Board examinations till Friday, which is likely to cause a dip in the pass percentage of the state’s high school and intermediate exams.
It is for the first time in over nine decade history of the board that such a large number of examinees have failed to appear for the examinations, which experts said could largely be a result of the strict anti-cheating measures implemented by the board in accordance with the state government’s directives.
Till the fourth day of the ongoing UP Board’s High School and Intermediate examinations, 10,44,619 lakh students — nearly 15% of all those who had registered— did not turn appear for the tests.
Board records revealed that out of the total number of examines that did not appear for the exams, 6,24,473 had to sit for high school examinations and 4,20,146 for intermediate. In 2016, the total count of examinees who had left examinations midway was 6,45,024.
When the past one decade of UP Board records were assessed, a significant fluctuation in overall pass percentage in both high school and intermediate examinations was seen, a likely outcome of the anti-copying measures strictly implemented from time to time.
In the higher school examinations, the lowest pass percentage of 40.07% was registered in 2008 while the highest percentage of 87.66 % was recorded in 2016. Similarly, in intermediate examinations , lowest overall pass percentage of 65.05% was recorded in 2008 while the highest pass percentage of 92.68% was registered in 2013.
According to Lal Mani Diwedi, state general secretary of Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh (UPMSS), varying political will to check
copying under different regimes played a major role in the pass percentage fluctuating.
“In 1992. during the Bharatiya Janata Party rule with Kalyan Singh as chief minister, the