NEW DELHI, May 12: Girls continued to outshine boys in CBSE class 10 and 12 exams while the pass percentage and the number of students scoring above 90 and 95 per cent marks dipped compared to last year.
CBSE officials said a comparison cannot be drawn with last year’s statistics as the academic session then was split into two terms because of the Covid pandemic.
School principals, however, claimed the decline was due to the introduction of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for undergraduate admissions.
The pass percentage in class 10 stood at 93.12 per cent, a dip of 1.28 percentage points from last year. The pass percentage in 2019 (pre-pandemic year) was 91.10 per cent.
Similarly, the pass percentage in the CBSE class 12 exam has gone down by 5.38 percentage points and stands at 87.33 per cent as against 92.71 per cent last year. In 2019 (the pre-pandemic academic session), the pass percentage was 83.40 per cent.
A similar trend was witnessed in the number of students who scored above 90 per cent and 95 per cent marks.
In Class 12, as many as 1.12 lakh students scored above 90 per cent and 22,622 candidates secured above 95 per cent marks. Among those who scored above 90 per cent, 271 are from Children With Special Needs (CSWN) category. As many as 44 CSWN students scored above 95 per cent.
Last year, 1,34,797 candidates scored above 90 per cent in Class 12, while 33,432 candidates scored above 95 per cent.
However, in 2019 (pre-pandemic academic session), the number of students scoring above 90 per cent and 95 per cent was 94,299 and 17,693, respectively. In the last academic session, the exams were conducted in two parts and the syllabus was split into two terms as a one-time measure in view of the pandemic.
“This year, the board resumed the annual one-term practice like pre-pandemic years wherein students had to give exams of the entire syllabus at once,” a senior board official said.
“Therefore, a valid comparison can only be drawn with pre-pandemic years and the pass percentage has increased from pre-pandemic year 2019,” the official added. (PTI)