In new marking system, 95% scorers up by 118.6%

Compared to last year, the number of students scoring 95% and above has increased by 118.6% and those getting 90% and above by 67.48% this year in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 12 results announced on Monday.

A total of 38,686 students have scored 95% and above marks in aggregate of all subjects, up by 118.6% from 17,693 in 2019. As many as 1,57,934 students have scored 90% and above, 67.48% higher than last year’s tally of 94,299.

CBSE’s controller exam Sanyam Bhardwaj said the change in the exam pattern this year led to an increase in the number of those scoring 90% and 95% marks. “The change in exam pattern helped many students to score better. We introduced 25% objective-type questions in all the subjects and had also given 33% internal choice in the exams. Also, we had released the datesheet earlier than previous years. It also helped the students prepare better,” he said.

Several school principals, however, said the new evaluation policy adopted by the CBSE in view of the Covid-19 pandemic also helped students in scoring more marks. This year, the students were evaluated on the basis of the average of marks in exams they had appeared for before the lockdown was announced to contain the pandemic in March.

Manju Sethi, principal of Bluebells School International, said, “Although the changed exam pattern helped students to score more, there is also a high probability that many students have benefited by the changes in the evaluation process. There is a possibility that some students had already appeared in the exams of subjects of their strength before the lockdown was announced and scored better in those subjects. For papers that couldn’t be conducted, the students were evaluated on the basis of the average of the exams they appeared for. So, it helped the students.” The board had to cancel the exams of 12 subjects this year including Business Studies, Home Science, Sociology, Computer Science, Hindi and Information Technology, among others.

A large section of students in many schools has scored between 90-100 per cent marks. For instance, Delhi Public School (DPS) in Vasant Kunj saw over 22% of Class 12 students scoring more than 95% marks. Of the 466 students who appeared for their Class 12 papers this year, all passed and 242 students (51.93%) scored more than 90%, the school said. For Amity International School in Mayur Vihar, 146 out of the 389 students who appeared for the exams, scored more than 95%.

Divya Bhatia, principal of Amity International School in Saket, said, “There is a marginal percentage increase in the number of students scoring above 90% in our school.”

Several government schools have also recorded unprecedented scores of 90% and 95% this year. Head of a government school in Dwarka, said, “The average score of our 137 students is 450.5 out of 600 this year. It means the majority of them have scored above 90%.”

Head of a Delhi government’s School of Excellence said 60 out of 143 of their students have scored more than 90% marks.

Under the children with disabilities category, as many as 243 scored 90% and above marks; 42 have scored 95% and more, results data showed.