india

Updated: Jun 09, 2019 01:58 IST

The passing percentage for Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams this year is the lowest in 11 years for the Mumbai div-ision, which also includes Thane, Raigad and Palghar. It dropped to 74.94% from 85.05% last year, while it was 78.7% in 2009.

The Class 10 board exam results were announced by the Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) on Saturday. In the Mumbai division, 3,73,088 students had appeared for the exam – held between March 1 to March 22 – of which 2,79,602 students passed.

The passing percentage dipped across the state, too, with 75.53% students clearing the exams as against 86.43% last year.

Among the nine divisions in Maharashtra, Mumbai stood fifth, while the Konkan region recorded the best passing percentage at 87.50%.

Only 20 students across the state scored 100% compared to last year’s 125 students. No student from the Mumbai division managed the feat, even as four students had achieved it in 2018.

The number of Mumbai division students with scores above 90% fell from 13,229 in 2018 to 5,399 this year; and as has been the trend, girls outperformed boys with success rates of 80.65% and 70.01% respectively.

Experts attributed the steep fall in scores to the new paper pattern that was introduced by the state education department during the start of the academic year (2018-19). The state had also scrapped oral exams for languages and social sciences.

“With no internal marks, students have performed poorly in languages. They had to write a 100-mark paper, which made it difficult for them to score, thus bringing down the passing percentages in most schools,” said Anna Correa, principal, St Stanislaus High School, Bandra.

State education minister Vinod Tawde, however, said the change in pattern will help students understand where their aptitude lies.

“It is true that the overall scores have gone down this year. But the paper pattern was changed to ensure that there is no spiking of scores, which would earlier happen, as schools would give marks liberally for internals,” he said.

Meanwhile, the poor results are likely to put state board students, vying for top junior colleges in the city, at a disadvantage over their counterparts from other boards.

“State board students will find it difficult to make it to top colleges, where the competition to get in is tough every year,” said Vasant Kalpande, retired director of the state board and a senior educationist.