While girls in the State maintained a time-worn academic tradition by effortlessly outperforming boys yet again in the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) or Class XII results declared on Tuesday, there was a dip in the overall pass percentage figure as compared to last year.
In fact, the overall pass percentage of 85.88 announced by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education was the lowest in the last three years. In 2018, the cumulative pass percentage figure stood at 88.41, little more than one percentage point lower than 2017’s overall pass figure of 89.5. The figure in 2016 was 86.6%.
“This year, the cumulative pass percentage dipped by 2.53 percentage points as compared to the figure recorded in 2018. However, there is nothing unnatural in this as the overall pass percentages keep varying each year and are generally robust,” Shakuntala Kale, chairperson of the State board, said.
This year, girl students recorded a robust pass figure of 90.25%, far outclassing the boys, of whom only 82.40% could clear the exams. Ms. Kale also said there were 22 categories of invalid students who cumulatively recorded a pass percentage of 92.6.
Of the 14.23 lakh students — 7,91,682 boys and 6,30,254 girls — who appeared for the examination across the nine HSC divisions, 12.21 lakh — 6,52,379 boys and 5,68,780 girls — passed the exam.
The Science stream recorded a pass percentage of 92.6, a decrease of three percentage points as compared to the 95.85% students who had cleared the exam last year. The Arts stream, too, recorded a dip of nearly two percentage points, with 76.45% students clearing the exam as compared to 78.93% in 2018.
Likewise, the Commerce stream recorded a slide of more than one percentage point, with 88.28% students clearing the exam as compared to 89.5% last year. The pass percentage figure for vocational candidates was 78.93 as opposed to 82.18 last year.
Ms. Kale, expressing satisfaction at the successful conduct of the exams, said, “This year, to combat incidents of pre-exam tension, we recruited 57 counsellors to help students suffering extreme stress and despair. To preclude any malpractices during the exam, 252 flying squads were deployed across the nine divisions.”
Yet again, Konkan division, where the fewest students appeared for the exam (31,764), notched up the highest pass percentage of 93.23 in the State. Pune division, where 2.4 lakh students appeared for the exam, came second with 87.88% students clearing the exam.
Mumbai division, where the highest number of students took the exam (3.16 lakh), registered the second lowest pass percentage of 83.84, way below its pass figure of 87.44% in 2018.
This time, Nagpur division, where 1.58 lakh students took the exam, had the dubious honour of recording the lowest pass percentage of 82.51. In Nashik division, 84.77% of the 1.59 lakh students who appeared for the exam cleared it. The division had recorded the lowest percentage of 86.13 in 2018.