Ministry of Education Big Announcement: 35 lakh class 10 students will not promote

Approximately 35 lakh students enrolled in Class 10 in 2021-2022 did not progress to Class 11, according to an analysis exercise carried out by the Ministry of Education (MoE). Of these 35 lakh students, 27.5 lakh failed, and 7.5 lakh students did not appear for the Class 10 examinations.

While the failure rate of students in Central Boards, including the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) is as low as 5%, it can be as high as 16% in State Boards. The analysis also found a vast difference in performance of students from various boards and significant variation in pass percentage.

Moreover, there were no level playing field for students in terms of standard, highlighted the report. In the assessment, it was found that top five boards, ie Uttar Padesh, CBSE, Maharashtra, Bihar, and West Bengal, covered about 50 per cent of students.

On the other hand, remaining 50 per cent of students were enrolled in 55 boards across the country. The stark difference in pass percentages of various states has led the education ministry to now asses the situation of education boards in the country and standardise the assessment pattern for all 60 school boards across various states in the country.

There are three central baords in India, ie Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS). Apart from this, there are around 60 state boards in India. Stark difference in pass percentage of students can be witnessed in the pass percentage of students in Kerala and Meghalaya.

In Meghalaya, senior secondary exams pass percentage stood at 57 per cent, whereas it was 99.85 per cent in Kerala. As per the report, a total of 11 states make 85 per cent of school dropouts, these schools are UP, Bihar, MP, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Assam, West Bengal, Haryana and Chhattisgarh.

Higher rate of failure in state boards is the result of lesser number of trained teachers and low count of teachers per school. This contributes to low Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) and also affects India’s overall rank in global indices. The report analused the Class 10 and 12 result of state boards of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Odisha, etc.

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