CHENNAI: The State recorded 95.2 pass percentage in the Class 10 Board Examinations that was announced on Monday. It is a slight increase of 0.7 per cent when compared to the previous year and has been driven by government and boys schools which have witnessed increase of 1.1 and 1.4 per cent, respectively. Girls have continued to do better than boys by recording a pass percentage of 97. Tirupur district has jumped six places and recorded the highest pass percentage with 98.53 per cent.
The State has witnessed a 3.35 per cent increase in schools with 100 per cent results. In all, 6100 schools in the State recorded cent per cent results as opposed to 5584 schools in the previous year. While disabled candidates secured a pass percentage of 91.2, prisoners who took up the examinations, secured a 72.3 pass percentage.
‘New’ questions
The pass percentage in Maths has recorded a slight increase despite the massive outcry from students following the examination, alleging “tricky” questions and “new” questions. “Very few book back questions were asked and one mark questions were tricky,” said K Divakar, a student who secured 373 marks.But teachers across the State said that this has robbed many students of centum. “Even the smartest students were not able to answer a few one word questions in the Maths exam,” said a Class 10 teacher from a school in Kodungaiyur.
While the Directorate of Government Examinations maintained that all Class 10 Board Exams were set using the blueprint, principals of private and government schools insisted that the question papers did not follow the blueprint. “There was a last-minute confusion about blueprint but it wasn’t followed. Many of our students were not able to understand some questions in Science and Maths papers because they were indirect,” said G R Nandakumar, secretary of the private school association, claiming the number of students scoring above 480 has dropped this year.
The Directorate of Government Examinations has not compiled any data on scoring ranges of students, citing reasons that it will cause inferiority complexes among students. However, teachers, principals and officials in the school education department, conceded that the scrapping of the blueprint did not have a big impact. “The effect of scrapping blueprint was visible in Class 12 results but it has not had a big effect on class 10 results,” said a senior teacher from Nagercoil.However, some teachers attributed lenient valuation of exam papers for the decent results.