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Calcutta, May 29: The first Madhyamik examination after syllabus bifurcation showed only a marginal rise in the pass percentage but teachers in some schools said students with average merit had done well in individual subjects because of lesser study burden.
The pass percentage in this year’s Madhyamik was 81.06 per cent, up 0.49 per cent up from 80.57 last year. As many as 10,05,414 candidates had appeared for the examinations this year.
The buzz in many Calcutta schools was that the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education’s move to reduce the syllabus burden had boosted subject-wise performance of students this time as they were tested only on the Class X syllabus.
“The overall pass percentage has increased marginally. But I am happy there has been some improvement. We are hopeful that the success rate will increase in the coming years,” said board president Chaitali Dutta.
This was the first time Madhyamik examinees were tested on the bifurcated syllabus. Apart from reducing the burden of a two-year syllabus on students, the split also aimed at bringing the Madhyamik examination system on par with the CBSE and ICSE boards which also test students on the Class X syllabus only.
“The scores of several average students have increased this time as they had to study only the Class X syllabus. Our school has been performing well for several years now. But the change this year was that the marks of individual students in some subjects are very good,” said Shyam Narayan Bandopadhyay, the headmaster of the state-run Hindu School.
Ashoke Maity, the secretary of a school in Tiljala, said the number of above-50 per cent scorers in science subjects such as mathematics, physical science and life science has increased this time.
“We have not done an analysis of the results, but it appears that students of average merit have done better this time because they got some relief because of the lesser syllabus load,” Maity added.
The pass percentage in this year’s ICSE examination was 98.62 per cent, 17.56 points higher than that of Madhyamik.
Some teachers, however, said the success rate would have been higher had the board implemented its decision on the Class X syllabus properly.
“The board has stopped organising orientation programmes for teachers. The bifurcation could have given better results if the teacher orientation programmes were held on a regular basis,” said Utpal Roy, the general secretary of the CPM-controlled All Bengal Teachers’ Association.
The performance in the districts were similar to last year’s. In East Midnapore, the success rate was the highest at 91.42 per cent followed by Calcutta at 87.01 per cent. South 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly and North 24-Parganas took the next four places.
The board also published a provisional merit list of 104 students placed in the top 12 ranks.
The Mamata Banerjee government brought back the system of publishing the merit list last year after it was abolished by the earlier Left Front government in 2005 to spare schoolchildren the stress for becoming toppers.
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