At a school in Ludhiana on Wednesday. (Express Photo by Gurmeet Singh)
The CBSE announced results for its Class X board examinations on Wednesday afternoon, with 91.46 per cent of 18,73,015 candidates clearing the exams.
This year’s result reflects an improvement of 0.36 percentage points from last year when the overall pass percentage was 91.10 per cent. For the most part, students of Class X – barring those from North-east Delhi – did not have their exams interrupted as substantially as the Class XII students. Except for North-east Delhi students, Class X students had answered all their major papers before the board decided to halt pending exams from March 19 onwards.
Therefore, the CBSE’s modified marking scheme formula of taking averages of best papers has not been applied in a widespread manner among Class X students. This formula had contributed to high scores in Class XII results.
For students from North-east Delhi who missed the exams due to the riots in the area, the papers were rescheduled for July 1-15, but were later cancelled in view of the Covid-19 spread.
The number of students who have scored above 90 per cent and 95 per cent this year is less as compared to last year.
This year, 41,804 students – or 2.23 per cent of the candidates – scored above 95 per cent, which is a dip from last year’s 3.25 per cent. Likewise, 1,84,358 – 9.84 per cent of the candidates — scored above 90 per cent, significantly less than last year’s 12.78 per cent.
This time too, girls fared better than boys — 93.31 per cent of girls who appeared for the exams passed as compared to 90.14 per cent of boys. 78.95 per cent of transgender candidates cleared the exams.
While still far behind private schools, Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, state government schools have improved their performances considerably.
Though they are still behind the national pass percentage with 80.91 per cent, this is a significant increase from last year’s 71.91 per cent.
The three regions with the highest pass percentages were Trivandrum, Bengaluru and Chennai with 99.28 per cent, 98.95 per cent and 98.23 per cent, respectively.