Cuttack, April 30: The state today produced its best-ever results in matriculation examinations with the pass score for regular candidates touching a record 75.99 per cent — an improvement of over five per cent from last year.

Another significant feat was the board of secondary education (BSE) meeting the April-end deadline for declaring results, earlier than any other education board in the country.

Buoyed with the success of various reforms that led to the smooth conduct of exams and better results, school and mass education minister Rabi Narayan Nanda today disclosed plans of introducing a grade system for the state Class X exams for the next batch of matric candidates.

The new system would be based on the CBSE grading pattern to reduce stress among students, said Nanda, while releasing the result booklet at the BSE office in Cuttack. Around six lakh students had appeared for the exam held between February 25 and March 9 at 1,095 centres across the state.

Numbers at a glance

The pass percentage for the state stood at 73.11 per cent. Of the 5.13 lakh regular candidates, 1.05 lakh secured first division, 1.27 lakh obtained second division and 1.53 lakh students got third division marks. For the 54,937 ex-regular students, the pass percentage was 48.81.

Among the districts, Balasore performed best with 86.97 per cent of its students passing followed by Jharsuguda at 85.39 per cent. Nuapada, which had recorded the highest pass percentage last year at 81.87, fell to the bottom of the table with a dismal 51.38 per cent this time. The pass per cent in Cuttack and Khurda districts was 78.52 and 75.93, respectively.

The overall performance of schools was better with 289 schools registering cent per cent results against 240 last year. Significantly, the number of school recording nil results also fell sharply from 139 to 51. The results of 739 students have been withheld.

This year again, boys fared better than girls. A total of 78.07 per cent boys cleared the exam as compared to 74.02 per cent girls.

A total of 11,190 scheduled caste and 9,933 scheduled tribe candidates passed in first division with boys outperforming girls here too.

Goof-up

Minutes after the matric results were published online, several meritorious students alleged that they had been awarded zero in Sanskrit and mathematics while they had secured over 90 per cent in all other subjects.

“I have been declared failed because of some goof-up in evaluation or data entry. My average comes to around 96 per cent without taking Sanskrit into account,” said Abhishek Tripathy, a student of Saraswati Sishu Mandir in Bhubaneswar. Some of them, along with their parents, also visited the BSE office demanding rectification within a week.

Officials of the BSE said the mistakes had cropped up during scanning and data entry and would be corrected in two days.

“We have already made the necessary changes for 149 students in the first phase by tallying their mark sheets with our official records. They have all been awarded first division.

We will address all such problems as and when the aggrieved students approach us,” said BSE secretary Ramakrushna Sahoo.

First class MLA

Suspended BJP MLA Bhimsen Choudhury, 51, who appeared for the matric exams this year, bagged a first division by securing 360 of 600 marks. He scored highest in Sanskrit (91). Choudhury, who represents the Bonai Assembly seat in Sundergarh district, had written the exam from the Raja Dharanidhar High School at Bonai. He has been suspended for abstaining from Rajya Sabha polling in 2010.

KISS achievers

Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), which is an exclusive institute for tribal students in Bhubaneswar, recorded 90 per cent pass results, with most students getting first-division marks. Of the 630 tribal boys and girls, 570 cleared the exam.

No toppers

For the first time, the Board of Secondary Education did not publish the top-100 list to relieve the students of pressure. “We will upload the results of students who have secured 95 per cent or more on our website (www.bseodisha.nic.in) by Wednesday,” said the BSE president. Last year, the board found itself in the middle of a controversy after the merit list was posted on a social networking website a day before the results were scheduled to be declared.

Mark sheets

Students can collect their original certificates and mark sheets from their respective schools from May 10, said BSE authorities.

Improvement exams

The supplementary exams have been scheduled for May last week and the results are expected to be declared by the end of June so that the candidates can take part in the Plus Two admission process or any other post-matriculate courses without wasting a year.