After a photograph that showed people scaling the wall of a four-storey building to help students appearing for the Class 10 Bihar Board exams went viral in March last year, an embarrassed State government took tough measures this year to prevent examinees from adopting unfair means. But the result: more than half the students failed.
The results, declared on Sunday, showed only 46. 66% students passed, a dip of 28% compared to last year when 75.17 % had cleared the exam. Out of 15.47 lakh students, as many as 8.21 lakh (53%) have failed and 7.8 lakh have failed in mathematics alone. The pass percentage of boys at 54.44% was almost 17% more than that of girls at 37.61%. Only 10.86 per cent students were able to attain first division as compared to 21.45 per cent students of last year. The results of 1,669 students are still pending.
Toppers from govt. school
Significantly, all top 10 students are from a government residential school, Simultala Awasia Vidyalaya of Jamui district, which was opened a few years back on the pattern of Jharkhand’s famous Netarhat School.
When asked about the poor results, State Education Minister Ashok Chaudhary told The Hindu , “The results are not as expected, but it shows the actual merit of our students. This is because the government had taken some corrective steps to ensure fair examinations this year in view of the last year’s mass copying.”
Last year, when the photograph went viral, the then Education Minister P.K. Shahi had said: “Over 14 lakh students are taking the examination, what can the government do to prevent copying if parents and relatives are not ready to cooperate? Should the government give orders to shoot them?”
But this year, the new Education Minister Ashok Chaudhary had CCTV cameras installed and 70,000 officials and policemen deployed at the exam centres. The government also decided to slap a fine of up to Rs. 10,000 on those caught using unfair means and provided for imprisonment of relative found helping the examinees with answers. Besides, Section 144 was also imposed around the exam centres too keep guardians and relatives away. Some of the schools notorious for mass-copying were identified and black listed.
In 1996 too, when the Patna High Court had cracked down on rampant mass copying in the State, only 12% students could pass the Class 10 exam.
