Eco, maths have highest failure rates in a decade
One in every five students who sat for a CBSE economics exam in 2015 failed. According to an analysis of CBSE results for Class 12 done by the Hindustan Times, the subject had the highest failure rate between 2004 and 2015.
For students who will give the exam in 2018, CBSE has changed the pattern for the subject. The new format allots 80 marks for theory and 20 marks to a “project,” unlike the previous pattern of a single 100-mark written exam.
Mathematics has the second highest failure rate. More than 15% of students who opted for the subject failed.
“Everybody wants to do commerce today. But it is not necessary that people who want to do commerce have an aptitude for mathematics,” said Ameeta M Wattal, Principal of Springdales School, Pusa Road.
Since the two subjects have an element of mathematical and statistical ability, Wattal thinks it is not surprising that they have high failure rates. “They both work together as a group,” she added.
For Economics, another key reason might be the evaluation requirements that focus on the technical terminology for the subject, said Amit Bhalla, Economics teacher at GD Goenka School, Vasant Kunj.
While Economics and Mathematics have a high percentage of failures, Hindi Core and Physical Education have the lowest. While very few students fail in Hindi, a small percentage (8%) scores more than 90%.
Most consistent in terms of producing top scorers has been psychology. Since 2010, on an average 15-20% of psychology students scored more than 90 in the subject. Computer Science comes second -- in 2015, close to 20% of its students were 90 percenters.
Teachers think the logical nature of the subject is what gets the good scores. “It is easy to score because does not require mugging. It is more practical,” said Ruchhe Sharma, Computer Science teacher at Rukmini Devi Public School, Rohini.
Barring psychology, most other Humanities subjects haven’t had high scorers historically. Other subjects that saw big spikes were in the Sciences Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics.