2024 Board Exams: More girls cleared Class 12th in science stream than in arts

While more boys than girls continue to pursue the science stream, the gap has been narrowing. Around 46% of students who cleared Class 12 in the science stream were girls both in 2024 and 2023. This figure was 44% in 2022, and 42% in 2021.

In September last year, based on data from the Ministry of Education, The Indian Express had reported that numbers from 25 school boards between 2010 and 2023, show that of the total students who passed their Class 12 Board exam in the science stream, 45.53% were girls — up from 38.22% in 2010. The proportion of boys in the science stream decreased from 62% to 54% during the same period.

In 2014, the gap between the girls pursuing science and arts was large – around 7.5 lakh more girls cleared Class 12 in the arts stream than in science. In 2017, there were 5.48 lakh more girls in arts than science. This difference increased to 7.94 lakh more girls in arts than science in 2021, before dropping to a difference of 4.03 lakh in 2023.

“Science has been gaining in terms of the number of students choosing the stream, while the other streams have seen a decrease,” an official in the Ministry of Education said. Compared to 2022, nearly 9 lakh more students cleared Class 12 in the science stream in 2024 (around 61 lakh in 2024 vs 52.4 lakh in 2022). In contrast, the Arts stream saw a drop from around 50 lakh in 2022 to 49.2 lakh in 2024. Similarly, commerce registered a drop from 18 lakh in 2022 to 16.8 lakh in 2024.