65 lakh students didn't clear Class 10, 12 board exams last year: Education ministry

NEW DELHI : More than 65 lakh students from across the country did not clear Class 10 and 12 board exams last year with the failure rate being higher in state boards than the national boards, according to Ministry of Education (MoE) officials. An analysis of Class 10 and 12 exam results of 59 school boards, including 56 state boards and three national boards, revealed that more girls appeared in Class 12 exams from government-managed schools but it is opposite in private schools and government-aided schools.

However, across school management it's they who are outperforming their male counterparts by a big margin. Overall, across schools of different management as well the gap in pass percentage is also in favour of the girls by over six per cent.

"Around 33.5 lakh students of Class 10 did not reach next grade. While 5.5 lakh candidates did not appear, 28 lakh failed. This is one of the cause for low retention rate and Gross Enrolment Ration (GER) at higher secondary level," a senior MoE official said. Similarly, around 32.4 lakh Class 12 students did not complete the grade. While 5.2 lakh did not appear, 27.2 lakh failed. In Class 10, the student failure rate in national boards stood at six per cent while that of state boards was much higher at 16 per cent. In Class 12, the failure rate at national boards is 12 per cent while that of state boards is 18 per cent.

Board exams results: State boards vs central boards

The ministry officials noted that the open school performance was poor in both the classes. The highest number of student failure in Class 10 was in Madhya Pradesh board followed by Bihar and UP . While in Class 12, the highest student failure was reported from Uttar Pradesh followed by Madhya Pradesh. "Overall performance of students in 2023 declined in comparison with previous year. This could be due to larger syllabus for examination," the official said.

More girls appeared for Class 10 and 12 board exams from government schools than boys. "This may reflect gender bias while spending on education by parents," the official said. Despite that, girls dominated in pass performance across all management -- in Class 12, 87.5 per cent of girls in private schools qualified the exam as against 75.6 per cent boys, which is close over nine lakh boys failing in the exam as against four lakh girls.

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A total of 59 examination boards, including three national boards and 56 state boards, reported their results. The examinations covered a broad range of curricula, with some boards following non-NCERT syllabi. Despite the large number of students, the pass percentages indicate a troubling trend. In Class 10, out of approximately 18.5 million students who appeared for the board exams, 84.9 per cent passed. However, around 33.5 lakh students are not advancing to Class 11 due to failures or non-appearance, contributing to a lower retention rate. In class 12, about 82.5 per cent of the 15.5 million students who appeared passed.

The pass rate was highest among students in the Nepali and Manipuri languages (85.3 pc each). A significant number of students — 32.4 lakh — did not complete their class 12 education, either failing or not appearing for the exams. Cumulatively, over 55 lakh candidates failed to qualify the class 10 and 12 boards in 2023. No significant difference in performance was observed between students taking the exams in different languages for both classes 10 and 12. However, disparities between regions and types of boards are evident, highlighting a need for standardisation.

Board exams in regional languages

Notable performance was seen among students taking the exams in regional languages such as Marathi (87.4 pc), Punjabi (87.4 pc), and Malayalam (87.4 pc) in Class 10. Medium-wise, apart from Hindi and English, Bengali and Marathi are the medium language which have over 10 lakh students and their pass percentage is better than English and Hindi. Science is the most popular stream, with 43 per cent of students, predominantly chosen by boys, followed by arts chosen by 39 per cent of students, with a higher representation of girls. Moreover, pass percentage of girls too is marginally higher than boys in science and significantly in arts.