Madhyamik: Overall pass %age at 86.15

Kolkata: The pass percentage of the students in this year’s Madhyamik examination stood at 86.15 percent with boys outperforming girls in terms of pass percentage in spite of appearance of female examinees being 22.8 percent higher than their male counterparts. The results of the examination was announced by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) on Friday, on the 76th day after the examination ended on March 4.

Among 6,82,321 examinees who sat for the examination this year, the number of male and female candidates are 3,06,253 and 3,76,068 respectively. Interestingly, 1,29,572 minority female candidates appeared for the examination well surpassing their male counterpart by 79,654.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee congratulated the students for cracking the Madhyamik examination and wished them success in their future endeavours. Education minister Bratya Basu also extended greetings to the examinees and wished them success.

“The rise in the number of female candidates indicate that there is a growing urge not only to send girl children to school among the cross section of society but also to continue their studies at least up to the secondary level. The state government’s different programmes for encouraging girls’ education has surely made an impact,” Ramanuj Ganguly, president of WBBSE, said.

East Midnapore district recorded the highest pass percentage with 96.81, followed by Kalimpong 94.13, Kolkata 93.75 and West Midnapore 92.13. Children with special needs performed exceedingly well with 88.81 percent among them passing the examination.

The pass percentage of students slightly dipped from 86.60 percent to 86.15 percent this year. The Board attributed the same to learning lag and deficit due to Covid. “Our students are used to classroom teaching which went somewhat missing due to the pandemic,” Ganguly said. As many as 118 candidates across the state figured in the merit list of the top 10 released by the Board with Malda alone having 21 candidates. East Burdwan has 17 candidates followed by Bankura with 14, South 24-Parganas 13, East Midnapore 11.

Last year, Srutarshi Tripathi of Patha Bhavan School (ranked fourth) was the only student from Kolkata to have figured in the top-10 merit list. This year, there’s no one featuring in the coveted few from Kolkata. Around 13.67 percent of the students scored above 60 percent in the exam. Two results have been withheld and 20 examinees’ papers have been cancelled for adopting unfair means.

Debdutta Majhi from Katwa Durgadasi Chaudhurani Girls High School in East Burdwan topped the merit list by securing 697 with 99.57 percent marks. Joint second rankers Subham Pal and Rifat Hasan Sarkar scored 691 which is six marks less than the topper.

The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th positions have gone to 6, 4, 9, 11, 19, 15, 17 and 34 candidates respectively.