Bhubaneswar, June 1: The annual Higher Secondary Examination results for arts, commerce and vocational streams conducted by the Odisha Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) were announced today and once again girls fared better.

The results clearly show that more number of candidates are clearing the exams with flying colours and the pass percentage is way better than what it used to be five years ago. Only 172 students could not clear out of 2 lakh and 42,000 candidates in the arts stream this year. The number of candidates who could not clear the exams was 3,757 in 2012 that dropped to 2,516 in 2013. The figures increased to 2,926 in 2014 and drastically dropped to 653 in 2015 before it finally reached 172 this year.

A similar trend was seen in the commerce stream where the number of failed candidates has gone down from 347 in 2013 to only six this year.

But, the overall performance of students saw a slight fall from the previous year. While the pass percentage stood at 76.31 last year, it dropped to 71.55 per cent this year.

The authorities blamed it on the poor quality of students enrolling in both the streams. "The quality of input is not impressive and that is why the pass percentage saw a drop from last year. There was no problem in the evaluation," said the CHSE chairman Basudev Chattoi.

The authorities informed that students interested for re-evaluation could do it online within 15 days while the instant exam for candidates who could no pass will be held from June 27 to 30.

The CHSE also confirmed that exam would be held for first-year students starting from this academic year. "There will be objective type questions on optical mark recognition sheets," said Chattoi.