Odisha Class 10th result 2018: Drop in matriculation exam pass percentage

CUTTACK: Odisha has recorded a pass percentage of 77.35 per cent in the matriculation examination this year, against last year’s 86.37.
The significant drop of 9 % in the pass percentage is a matter of concern as the state has been recording an improvement in the pass percentage in last five years. In 2013, the state had recorded a pass percentage of 75.99 and in 2017, the figure rose to 86.37.
While announcing the results at the office of Board of Secondary Education, which conducts matriculation examination, school and mass education minister Badri Narayan Patra expressed happiness over the performance of students and attributed the drop in results to reforms.
“For the first time, this year students were not allowed to appear the examination in their own schools and were allotted different examination centres. The move helped to check lot of malpractice which is a major reason for the drop in the results,” said Patra. “We had also strengthened the squads deployed to check malpractice. A five tier security system was put in place to check cheating. This year our results are completely free from malpractice,” said Patra.
At least 5,76,398 students from 13489 schools had appeared the matriculation exam this year, out of which 4,38,348 students have passed the examination. At least 1332 students were booked for malpractice while result of only one student has been withheld.
As has been the case for several years, this year too girls have outshone boys in the matriculation results. Girls have recorded a pass percentage of 77.85 against boys 76.83%.
Alike drop in results, even the number of students securing A1 grade(90 % and more) has also dropped. Last year 2417 students had scored over 90 % marks, but this year the figure has come down to 1715. Only 0.39 per cent of students have managed to score over 90% of marks.
Similarly, the number of students securing A2 (80% and above), B1(70 to 80%) and B2(60 to 70%) grades has also dropped. The number of schools which have recorded 100% results has increased to 422 against last year's 418. However, the number of schools with zero result has gone up to 36 against last year's 22.
Balasore district has recorded the highest pass percentage of 88.15 while Malkangiri district has recorded the lowest pass percentage with 59.32 %.
Scheduled caste(SC) and scheduled tribe(ST) students have also fared well in the exam. The pass percentage is SC category is 70.34 and in ST category its 71.94.
While under the State open school exam, matriculation examination conducted for drop outs, 13387 students had appeared the examination out of which only 41.93 % students managed to pass the examination.