Assam HSLC result 2019: Edu minister hails over rise in pass percentage

GUWAHATI: Assam education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya has hailed over four percent rise in pass percentage of the High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) examination after it was decided to do away with the moderation policy during evaluation of answer scripts in the exam from this year.

The overall pass percentage in the exam improved from 56.04 percent recorded last year to 60.23 percent in 2019.

“After scrapping the moderation policy in HSLC exam, we have got the actual results this year. There was no moderation policy, but still, our students bettered the results,” Bhattacharya told reporters at the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (Seba) office here on Wednesday, soon after the declaration of the Class X boards results.

He, however, said that the decision of the board to do away with moderation of marks had some bearing on the outcomes of the HSLC results. While 1,32,667 students got letter marks (80 percent or above in a subject) last year, Bhattacharya said that the number of students securing letter marks has declined to 1,15,642 this year. Similarly, the number of students scoring star marks (75 percent aggregate marks and above) has gone down to 11,326 from last year’s 14 thousand mark, which the minister said may be implications of discarding moderation policy that

“In previous years, moderation marks was allowed upto five percent on the actual marks scored by them. This was like grace marks only. The policy to scrap the moderation policy has brought out the true picture. The actual performance of the students has got reflected in the mark sheets in this year's results,” he added.

Out of around 7,000 secondary schools-including both government and private- affiliated to Seba, 491 schools produced cent percent results. The education minister said 65 government-run schools recorded hundred percent results this year, which reflected a noticeable improvement in the pass percentage of the government schools at a time when significant number of guardians are preferring to enroll their kids in the private schools.

Bhattacharya said that 10 students from the state’s government-run schools getting berth among the 39 students in the top-10 positions in the HSLC results tally has been an encouraging trend for the government-run schools. He, however, said that there is a scope for improving the results by the districts, as students from only 13 out of 27 districts could get a rank in top-10. "Dhemaji district is known for perennial floods wreaking havoc every year. Despite all the adversities, the students from the upper Assam district (Dhemaji) continues to show excellent results and produced best pass percentage in the state," he added.

On the other hand, raising concerns over comparatively ‘poorer’ results of the old government schools of Guwahati, which were known for their brilliant academics, the minister said the education department will analyze the loopholes of the government schools in the city. “Education department will shortly formulate a mechanism to improve the results of the government-run schools by taking the feedback of the parents and guardians regarding the mode of education imparted in the government-run schools,” said Bhattacharya.