The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Wednesday released Class 10 examination results with an overall pass percentage of 91.46%, recording a marginal improvement over last year’s figure, even as the board did not announce a merit list in view of the circumstances triggered by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
Out of the 1,873,015 students who appeared for the Class 10 examination this year, 1,713,121 students cleared the test across 20,837 schools in the country, with the overall pass percentage 0.36 percentage points higher than last year. Of these, 150,198 students received “compartment” this year compared to 138,705 last year.
As many as 184,358 and 41,804 students scored above 90% and 95% marks, respectively, 18% and 26.98% lower than last year’s figures.
In Delhi, the overall pass percentage increased five percentage points from 80.97% last year to 85.86% this year. The pass percentage in private schools (90.19%) this year decreased by nearly three percentage points over last year, while that in government schools (82.61%) increased by 11 percentage points
Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who holds the education portfolio, said: “Our children have made us proud again! After record breaking results of Class 12, upwards graph of Delhi Education continues in Class 10. Overjoyed that this year, results have improved to 82.61% from 71.58% last year.”
CBSE’s controller of examination Sanyam Bhardwaj said the increase in the number of “compartments” could be due to the increase in the number of students who took the test this year. “There seems to be no specific reason behind the dip [in the number of high-scorers]. One possible reason could be the stress due to the Covid-19 pandemic since the students were still preparing for their papers and taking exams at the beginning of March.”
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, CBSE postponed all Class 10 and Class 12 exams scheduled between March 19 and March 31 earlier this year. The move, however, had little effect on Class 10 exams that were scheduled to end on March 20. Only two exams were scheduled to take place on that day – Information and Communication Technology, and Computer Application.
“CBSE has decided to replace the term ‘Fail’ by the term ‘Essential Repeat’. Hence, in the result declared, no ‘Fail’ term will be mentioned in the documents issued to the candidates and the result hosted on the website,” CBSE said. Board officials said this was done to ensure students did not feel discouraged about their performance amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
In north-east Delhi, however, CBSE had to cancel exams on four days because of communal riots in February. Though the board announced in April that it would conduct six exams in north-east Delhi in July, they could not be held due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
“After reassessing the situation and worldwide spread of Covid19, it was decided that board will no longer be able to conduct examinations including those to be conducted in North-Eastern Delhi,” CBSE said in a statement on Wednesday.
For subjects for which exams could not be conducted, the board announced the results on the basis of an alternative assessment scheme. For students who appeared in the exams in more than three subjects, the average of the marks obtained in the best three subjects have been be awarded in the subjects whose examinations have not been conducted.
For students who have appeared in the exams in only three subjects, the average of the marks obtained in the best two performing subjects have been awarded in the subjects whose examinations have not been conducted.
Gauri Shrivastava, 16, a student of a government senior secondary school in riot-hit Yamuna Vihar has scored 97.6% marks under the revised assessment scheme. While she appeared for her science, social science, mathematics and Sanskrit exams, the situation in north-east Delhi prevented her from appearing for her English and Hindi exams.
Her father Vinay Shrivastava, who runs a business in Okhla, said his daughter would have scored more if she appeared for the remaining tests. “The riots broke out barely 500 metres from our place and though the atmosphere was tense outside, the thought of appearing for their papers kept my children distracted,” he said.
Richa Sharma, principal of Sanskriti School, whose average score stands at 88.43%, said: “The results have been as per our expectation because most of the Class 10 papers had already taken place before the exams were cancelled. Though it is too early to comment, we haven’t seen any anomalies in the marking pattern till now.”
While Thiruvananthapuram recorded the highest pass percentage at 99.28%, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Pune secured the second, third, and fourth spots. Two Delhi regions (West and East) stood at 14th and 15th positions while recording pass percentages of 85.96% and 85.79%, respectively.
Girls performed better than boys with 93.31% of them being promoted as compared to 90.14% boys across the country.
At 99.23%, Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) schools recorded the best pass percentage among institutions followed by Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JKV) at 98.66%. While government schools recorded a pass percentage of 80.91% across the country, the figure for private schools stood at 92.81%.
After the results were announced, Union minister for human resource development Ramesh Pokhriyal tweeted congratulatory messages to all stakeholders and reiterated that “student’s health and quality education are our priority.”
