Pandemic effect? Cut-offs to drop as HSC high scores fall

MUMBAI: For the second year in a row, Mumbai division, with the highest number of students-3.29 lakh-who sat for the Class 12 state board exam, recorded the lowest success rate of 86.42%. The fall in candidates' performance in CBSE, now followed by a poor show from HSC students, is likely to have a bearing on college admissions across all streams: Cut-offs for entering senior colleges are expected to drop.
The Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) results announced on Thursday had a pass percentage of 90.1%-over 3% lower than the previous year. More than 14.5 lakh students took the exams held over a month from February 21. The scores, though, were better than pre-Covid 2019's 83.1%.

The state's 90% club shrank from 10,048 to 7,696-down around 23% compared with 2022. This is the batch that took its first public exams, as their Class 10 boards in 2021 were cancelled due to the pandemic.
Full syllabus, lost writing habit hit HSC scores
While principals blamed the 3% drop in HSC performance on the lack of writing practice among students since the pandemic, state board chairman Sharad Gosavi attributed it to various reasons, including the fact that students appeared for 100% syllabus after spending two to three years online during Covid. “Last year, the syllabus was truncated to 75%; candidates were given 15-30 minutes extra,” said Gosavi. On Mumbai division’s performance, Gosavi said, “The demography of students in the city is diverse too, as candidates take the board exams in multiple mediums. Mumbai students also opt for the maximum number of subjects of the total 154 that we offer. These characteristics have an impact on the results,” he said. This year, exams were based on the entire syllabus and students scored cent per cent marks in 23 of the 154 subjects.
In none of the core subjects, be it science, accounts, mathematics, economics or languages, though, students scored 100%. In fact, subjects such as physics, chemistry and biology saw a drop of around 4% in the success rate; maths and statistics saw a fall of 6.5%. Non-teaching staff’s strike during the exams delayed science practicals, which could have affected the overall science results. The state has 69 colleges which did not see a single student make the cut and clear the board exams, of which Mumbai has 10. A closer look at the city’s results also shows that arts and science students’ scores slid sharply by 11.9% and 8.4%, respectively, over the previous year and have reached the prepandemic level. Commerce stream saw a drop of 5.4%. The commerce division has 1.71 lakh students—science had 1.05 lakh and arts 47,446. In Mumbai, 184 colleges recorded a cent per cent success rate in commerce, in addition to 175 in science and 96 in arts. Again, another 350-odd colleges across the city have registered from 90-99.99% success rate in commerce and science, and 138 arts colleges lie in the same success rate bracket.
At Mithibai College, a total of 138 students from commerce, 39 from arts and 4 from the science faculty scored over 90%. Out of 899 students who appeared for the HSC exam from Podar College of Commerce, 183 scored over 90%, said principal Shobhana Vasudevan. Colleges with multiple streams witnessed the best success rate in commerce, followed by arts and science. Picture this: At K C College, the commerce stream recorded the best passing percentage of 98.9%, followed by 97% in arts and 92.2% in science. Similarly, Mithibai College saw the highest success rate in commerce of 99.5%, 99.2% in arts and 90.9% in science. Reasoning this trend, Savio D’Souza, vice-principal, St Xavier’s College, said generally the high scorers in Class 10 opt for arts in city colleges, which leads to good results in arts as compared to science. “Our top scores in arts are, in fact, better than the previous year,” said D’Souza.
Across Maharashtra, 23 students, including 14 from Mumbai, were debarred for cheating and the results of 232 results have been kept in reserve. In Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Raigad district had the best performance with 90.53%. Cities such as Thane and Palghar recorded a pass percentage of 87.49% and 89.65%. In Mumbai division, girls outshone boys with a success rate of 88.9% versus 88.19% for male candidates.