Class XII scores come down; pass percentage inches up

Even city-based private schools known for scoring good results, such as the Zion Matriculation School, suffered a blow this year.

Class XII students checking their results pasted on the notice board at the CCMA govt girls school in Coimbatore, on Friday | U RAKESH KUMAR

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu recorded a pass percentage of 91.3 in Class XII Board exams this year, a marginal increase from the 91.1 per cent last year. While the Directorate of Government Examinations has not released any official data, teachers across the State claimed the number of centums has come down this year, thanks to scrapping of blueprints.   

A government school headmistress from Vellore said students were unable to score full marks as many questions were posed indirectly. “Students must be trained for exams without blueprints, right from primary classes,” she said. Only four students from corporation schools in Chennai scored a centum in a subject.   

(Left) Students celebrate with P Mahalakshmi, who emerged topper in the plus 2 exams at a private school in Chennai; Thilagavathi (centre) and Bargavi (right), hearing and speech impaired students of Little Flower convent school, who have secured the highest and second-highest scores in their school on Friday | P Jawahar/ Ashwin Prasath

Even city-based private schools known for scoring good results, such as the Zion Matriculation School, suffered a blow this year. “The number of centums in our main school has fallen from 32 last year to 21,” said the school principal. “But we continued to produce cent per cent results.” Number of schools with cent per cent results has fallen drastically, from 1,907 to 1,281.

Tough science?
While the number of students passing in science group has dipped from 94.29% last year to 92.75% this year, the number in the commerce group has increased from 87.45% to 90.78% this year

Boys get better
While girls continued to outperform boys in the exam, the performance of boys compared to last year was better. While the pass percentage of boys improved by 0.87 compared to last year, the performance of girls dipped by 0.46 per cent. Over 8 lakh students took the Board exam