Karnataka recorded a pass percentage of 71.93 in the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examination 2018 --an increase of 4.06 percentage points when compared with last year’s 67.87. A little over six lakh candidates--of the total 8.38 lakh who gave the exam in March this year--cleared all the papers. The results were announced on Monday by Principal Secretary of the Department of Primary and Secondary Education, Shalini Rajaneesh.
The pass percentage would not have been this high had it not been for grace marks awarded to 2% students, said M.T. Reju, Commissioner for Public Instruction.
Last year, the percentage of students who cleared the final exam had dropped to a seven-year low as the department had decided to stop the practice of giving grace marks. “After that rules were framed and students who are on the ‘borderline’ were given grace marks,” said Mr. Reju. Grace marks awarded is less than 5% of the maximum marks of the subject paper. According to the rules there are two types of grace marks which are either given at evaluation stage if there are errors in the question paper, or awarded at the result processing/compilation stage.
Girls with a pass percentage of 78.01 performed better than boys 66.5.
Rural students, who recorded a pass percentage of 74 outshone their urban counterparts, who were lagging behind with at 69.38.
Government school students registered a pass percentage of 75.12, while 83.05% of the students who attended private unaided schools cleared the exam.
Not a mark lost
Yashas M.S. of Sadvidya High School, Mysuru, and Sudershan K.S. from Holy Child English School, Bengaluru, achieved a perfect score, 625 out of 625. As many as 118 students secured the top six spots in the SSLC examination by scoring 620 and above.
