City, suburban colleges see 3-5% decrease in HSC pass percentage

MUMBAI: Western suburbs overtook their eastern counterparts in the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination, even as the city ranked the lowest in the Mumbai division this year. Colleges in both the city and the suburbs, though, saw a 3% to 5% dip in the pass percentage compared with the previous year. In comparison to the pre-Covid 2019, though, students across Mumbai did better this year.
Mumbai south, west and east along with Thane, Raigad and Palghar districts comprise the Mumbai division that stood at the bottom of all the nine zones for the second year in a row.
Like the previous years, this time too suburbs have done better than the island city. Colleges in south Mumbai, including Colaba, Malabar Hill, Byculla, Matunga and Dadar, recorded a pass percentage of 81.27%-up 4% compared with 2019. When measured against last year, though, they also saw a 4% drop. Principals said considering that students have been through a pandemic, they have done well. "After what they have faced, all that they have achieved is commendable," said the principal of a city college.
St Xavier's College recorded a success rate of 87.62% in science and 99.43% in arts. K C College registered 92.25% pass rate in science and 98.93% in commerce. Of the 42,372 students who took the exams in the city, 34,438 passed.
This year, western suburbs scored marginally higher than eastern suburbs with a pass percentage of 84.96% and 84.58%, respectively. Western suburbs had the maximum number of students at 72,766, followed by 43,094 in the eastern suburbs. Mithibai College had a success rate of 99.15% in arts this year compared with last year's 98.95%. The college's commerce stream did better at 99.53% compared with 98.31% last year.
In both 2022 and 2019, colleges in eastern suburbs performed better than western. This year, too, colleges in Raigad and Thane overtook both city and suburban colleges.