Maharashtra SSC pass percentage down by 3.18%; officials cite pandemic school closure

Sharad Gosavi, chairman of the board, says the drop is consistent with the decline seen in the pass percentages of almost all state- and national-level exams.

In continuation of the set pattern, girls have outperformed boys. Girls have secured a pass percentage of 95.87 per cent and boys 92.05 per cent. (Express Photo by Ganesh Shirsekar)

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A considerable drop of 3.18 was seen in the pass percentage in Maharashtra’s Class 10 (Secondary School Certificate) examinations, results for which were declared Friday. In comparison with the 2019-20 academic year, the drop is, however, 1.47 per cent.

Officials with the Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education attributed the low pass percentage to many factors including the possible adverse impact that the school closure during the Covid pandemic had on students’ learning abilities.

In continuation of the set pattern, girls have outperformed boys. Girls have secured a pass percentage of 95.87 per cent and boys 92.05 per cent. A total of 15.41 lakh regular students had registered and 15.29 lakh of them appeared for the SSC examinations. As many as 14.34 lakh of the students have passed and the overall pass percentage is 93.83. Similarly, out of 37,704 repeaters who had registered, 36,648 students appeared for the examinations and 22,320 of them, or 60.9 per cent, have passed.

Sharad Gosavi, chairman of the board, said the drop was consistent with the decline seen in the pass percentages of almost all board exams at the state and national levels.

“Many factors may have played a role in this, most saliently the impact of the lockdown on the learning abilities of the students, the effective copy-free campaign that we conducted in the state, the lenient conditions that were temporarily brought in during the pandemic years. The results vary from batch to batch and the difficulty level of the question papers also affects the passing percentage,” said Gosavi.

Among the nine divisions, Konkan came top in the state with a pass percentage of 98.11, while Nagpur division ranked the lowest with 92.05 per cent.