An analysis of Grade 10 and 12 examination results from 59 school boards, including 56 state boards and three national boards, revealed that more girls sat for Grade 12 examinations in government-run schools, but the opposite is true in private and government-aided schools.
However, in terms of school management, girls outnumber boys by a wide margin. The percentage of passers also favours girls by more than six percentage points.
“Around 33.5 lakh students of 10th grade did not make it to the next grade. While 5.5 lakh candidates did not appear, 28 lakh failed. This is one of the reasons for low retention rate and gross enrolment ratio (GER) at the higher secondary level,” a source said.
Similarly, around 32.4 lakh 12th grade students did not complete the grade, while 5.2 lakh did not appear and 27.2 lakh failed.
In 10th grade, the failure rate for students in national exams was 6%, while that for state exams was much higher at 16%. In 12th grade, the failure rate for national exams is 12%, while that for state exams is 18%.
The analysis revealed that performance in the open school was poor in both classes.
The highest number of students failing in the 10th grade was recorded in Madhya Pradesh county, followed by Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. While in the 12th grade, the highest number of students failing was recorded in Uttar Pradesh, followed by Madhya Pradesh.
“The overall performance of students in 2023 has declined compared to the previous year. This could be due to a more extensive examination programme,” the source said.
In public schools, more girls than boys sat the 10th and 12th grade exams, which could reflect a gender bias in parents’ spending on education, the source added.
Despite this, girls dominated in passing performance across the board: in class 12, 87.5% of girls in private schools qualified the exam as against 75.6% of boys, which is close to over nine lakh boys failing the exam as against four lakh girls.
A total of 59 examination boards, including three national boards and 56 state boards, reported their results. The exams covered a wide range of syllabi, with some boards following syllabi other than those of the NCERT. Though the number of students was high, the pass percentages indicate a worrying trend.
In the 10th grade, out of the approximately 18.5 million students who sat for the board exams, 84.9% passed. However, around 33.5 lakh students do not progress to the 11th grade due to failures or absences, contributing to a lower retention rate.
In 12th grade, about 82.5% of the 15.5 million students who sat for the exam passed. The pass rate was highest among Nepali and Manipuri speaking students (85.3% each). A significant number of students (32.4 lakh) did not complete their 12th grade education, either because they failed or because they did not appear for the exams.
In total, over 55 lakh candidates failed to qualify for class 10 and 12 boards in 2023.
No significant differences in performance were observed between students who took the exams in different languages for both grades 10 and 12. However, disparities between regions and board types are evident, highlighting the need for standardization.
A remarkable performance was seen among students who took the exams in regional languages like Marathi (87.4%), Punjabi (87.4%) and Malayalam (87.4%) in class 10. As far as medium is concerned, apart from Hindi and English, Bengali and Marathi are the medium languages with more than 10 lakh students and their pass percentage is better than English and Hindi.
Science is the most popular course, with 43% of students taking it, predominantly boys, followed by arts, with 39% of students taking it, with a higher representation of girls. In addition, the percentage of girls passing is also slightly higher than that of boys in science and significantly higher in arts.
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