New Delhi: Over 65 lakh students across India did not pass their class 10 and 12 board exams last year, with a higher failure rate observed in state boards compared to the central board, according to Ministry of Education (MoE) officials.
An analysis of results from 59 school boards—comprising 56 state boards and three national boards—shows that more girls from government-managed schools appeared for the class 12 exams, whereas in private and government-aided schools, the trend is reversed, as reported by news agency PTI.
Around 33.5 lakh class 10 students did not advance to the next grade. Out of these, 550,000 did not appear for the exams, and 28 lakh failed. This contributes to the low retention rate and Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) at the higher secondary level, according to a senior MoE official.
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Similarly, about 32.4 lakh class 12 students did not complete their grade. Of these, 520,000 did not appear, and 27.2 lakh failed.
In class 10, the failure rate for central board students was 6%, while state board students had a significantly higher failure rate of 16%. For class 12, the central board failure rate was 12%, compared to 18% for state boards.
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The open school performance was notably poor in both classes. Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of failures in class 10, followed by Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. In class 12, Uttar Pradesh had the highest failure rate, with Madhya Pradesh coming next.
Overall, student performance in 2023 declined compared to the previous year, which may be attributed to an increased syllabus load, according to officials.
More girls appeared for the class 10 and 12 board exams from government schools compared to boys, which may indicate a gender bias in educational spending by parents. However, girls generally outperformed boys in terms of pass rates across government, aided, and private schools.
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