Record number of students clear Madhyamik hurdle

Mou Chakraborty,
Kolkata, May 30, 2007
A record ten per cent increase in the pass rate and students scoring heavily has been the new trends as Madhyamik results came out on Wednesday.
This year 6,58,914 students appeared in the examination and 74.57 per cent of students passed compared to 64.95 per cent last year. The probable topper, Md Arif Shekh, has scored 795 out of a possible 800, something unthinkable in the Madhyamik examinations even two years back.
Another significant trend is the gap in the success rate of districts and Kolkata has decreased. As in the last few years, most of the toppers are from the districts and there is only one student from Kolkata in the top ten. However, the overall pass percentage of students in the city was good, with 73.71 per cent boys passing compared to 75.62 per cent of girls.
While East Midnapore has the highest pass percentage among boys with 86.63 per cent, Hooghly has 77.54 per cent of pass rate among the girls, which is the highest. Purulia on the other hand has the lowest boys and girl pass percentages, 56.28 per cent and 45.61 per cent respectively.
Explaining why the students have scored so heavily, the president of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Ujjal Basu said, “All national boards and the council has seen an upward trend in total percentage of marks obtained by the students. This is an all India phenomenon.” He added, “The flood of marks is because all boards have followed the recommendations of National Curriculum Frame Work, which has asked us to decrease stress among students by cutting down on their academic load.”
Apart from this, Basu pointed out that the board from this year had changed their question pattern and evaluation procedure, which helped the students to score heavily. “I do not remember seeing an increase of 10 per cent in the pass figures. This shows that the new syllabus has suited the students,” Basu added.
The school education minister, Partha De, said the good results were expected. “We anticipated a surge of high marks. Students had been selected rigorously in the pre-board examinations and only the meritorious were allowed to sit for Madhyamik. The weaker students were detained.”
The board had published the result within 42 days. A total of 34,588 students got star marks, 37 per cent are girls and 63 per cent are boys. Though there has been a glut of high scores, few students have been able to score full marks in any subject. Mathematics, physical science and additional mechanics were the subjects where students got full marks. A total of 582 students (372 from Kolkata) compared to 558 last year have scored full marks in mathematics. In physical science 32 students scored 100, while 105 scored full marks in mechanics.
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