Over 30% class 9 and 11 govt school students fail; officers look for solutions

As per data, only around 61 per cent students who appeared for the internal Class IX exams this year (2023) have passed. In Class XI, the pass percentage this year is around 69 per cent.

In 2018 and 2019, around 72 per cent and 80 per cent of the students who appeared for Class XI exams had passed. The pass percentage soared during the next three years.

For Class IX students, the pass percentage in 2018 and 2019 was a little over 57 per cent. In 2020, where students in junior classes wrote exams before the pandemic induced a nation-wide lockdown, the pass percentage was over 64 per cent.

Sources in the Delhi government said subjects such as mathematics and science have once again proved to be the students’ Achilles heel, with pass percentages being the lowest in these.

Education department officials attributed the dip in the Class IX pass percentage to learning losses during the pandemic.

“Usually, weaker students get a chance to course correct in Offline exams: Learning losses show up in results of Class IX, XI students

Class IX, when they face the first real exam of their lives. Till Class VIII, schools could not detain students despite their performance because of the no-detention policy. When these students, who wrote their Class XI exams this year, were in Class IX, they wrote tests online. There was no physical interface. There was a serious loss of learning these past years and we are seeing its consequences,” a senior official said.

During Covid years, when students wrote tests and exams from home, the pass percentages increased considerably, with approximately 80 per cent of Class IX students and 99 per cent of Class XI students passing (see box).

“The situation is similar in the smaller private schools in the country as well, where severe learning loss has been experienced in the past three years. The results are along expected lines, and while it is disheartening, this is the reality. It shows that we need to refocus our energies to address the losses,” the official said.

Government school principals, meanwhile, said a big problem was that many students joining secondary schools after completing primary education in municipal schools had to be taught the basics of language and mathematics in senior classes.

“By the time we teach them the basics of maths, such as division and multiplication, it is time for them to write the Class IX exams, which are far above their levels of comprehension. These problems have to be addressed at the primary levels,” she said.

The Delhi government will implement its detention policy this year, whereby students who do not perform in Classes V and VIII can be held back and made to repeat the grade.

“But that is not a long-term solution because we are just shifting the problem to earlier classes. Till the time gaps in primary education are not filled, the situation will continue,” a senior Education Department official said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, meanwhile, demanded that the results be made available in the public domain. “The Aam Aadmi Party government claims to spend 25 per cent of the budget on education, but if results are dipping despite it, questions have to be asked,” said leader of opposition from BJP Ramvir Bidhuri.