Region witnesses steep decline in pass percentage

PANCHKULA: After the paper leak controversy, a steep decline in pass percentage has been witnessed in Class 10 results in Panchkula region as the Central Bureau of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced the results on Tuesday afternoon.

This year, 87.65% students cleared the exam in the region comprising Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh as compared to 98.1% last year.

Regional officer RJ Khanderao, said the pass percentage is still better than the national average of 86.60%

Meanwhile, experts feel the dip of over 11% is due to strict marking of the board following reports of leak of mathematics paper. The board had decided not to re-conduct the paper following internal deliberations and protest by students.

On Tuesday, several students gathered at the CBSE regional office in Panchkula claiming discrepancies in the marking.

An Ambala-based student claimed while he got 78 marks in one subject even as he scored over 90 marks all other subjects.

After the Class 12 results also, Chandigarh students had held aprotest against low marking in English.

The decline in pass percentage is also being linked to the change in examination pattern. Since 2010, the Class-10 exam was modelled on continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) grading system where students were allotted grades based on their class performance throughout the year.

Since the entire grading under CCE was in the hands of school authorities, there were often allegations against schools inflating performance of their students and saving weak students.

However, the board restored the annual examination system from this year where everything has changed. This year, students’ performance has been rated based on the final exam.

As per CBSE previous records, the pass performance of Panchkula never dropped below 90% since CCE was in place.

“This year’s pass percentage is much more realistic performance of students in comparison to earlier performance,” said a CBSE official, not wished to be quoted.

J&K HAS HIGHEST PASS PERCENTAGE

As many as 2.40 lakh students from the region appeared in the Class 10 exam, of which 2.10 Lakh students cleared the exams.

Jammu and Kashmir, where 9,566 students appeared in the exam, had the highest 96.28% pass percentage followed by Himachal Pradesh (94.65%), Punjab (88.95%), Haryana (88.54%) and Chandigarh (66.21%)

GIRLS OUTDO BOYS AGAIN

The girls performed much better against boys as 92.08% girls passed the exam against 84.64% boys.

In terms of real numbers, while 1.20 Lakh boys out of 1.42 Lakh passed the exam, 89,634 girls passed out of 97, 345 total appeared.

KVS had better pass percentage

Centrally-funded Kendriya Vidyalayas in the region have better pass percentage as compared to state government and private schools.