National Science Day: Andhra Pradesh records highest pass percentage in board exams (science), here’s why?

National Science Day: Board-wise statistics of students passing in science stream

“Andhra Pradesh puts a lot of focus on students’ education. If you visit the state, you will find coaching centres in almost every lane. Everyone wants to head to the US for their higher studies. To achieve their study abroad dreams, they ensure that their board exam result is good, which reflects in the pass percentage, especially in Science,” says SS Mantha, former AICTE Chairman.

This is followed by Manipur where 68.87 per cent students cleared the board exam in 2022, which is an increase from 2021’s pass percentage of 68.42 per cent. However, this was a decline from the previous years where the pass percentage had been 71.39 per cent in 2020, 72.67 per cent in 2019 and 71.95 per cent in 2018.

Manipur is followed by Telangana at 64.59 per cent, Tamil Nadu at 61.5 per cent and Uttar Pradesh at 57.48 per cent.

However, the situation is slightly different when it comes to enrollment, and the number of students who pass their exams from the Science stream. Uttar Pradesh (UP) has registered the highest spot with 11 lakh students passing in the Science stream, followed by 6.1 lakh in Maharashtra, 4.79 lakh in Tamil Nadu, 4.25 lakh in Bihar. In between is also CBSE with 6.64 lakh registrations across the nation.

National Science Day: Board-wise statistics of share of pass out students

The contrast in the number of students passed and the passing percentage ranking is majorly due to the number of students appearing for the exams. Experts believe that there are certain states where the dropout rate in schools is higher than the rest which leads to low enrollments and therefore increased pass percentage.

According to the data made available by the government in December 2023, over 29 lakh students have failed to clear Class 10 exams in the past year. The number of students who have failed to qualify the Class 10 exam has increased in the last four years — it was 10,9,800 in 2019, 1,00,812 in 2020, which decreased to 31,196 in 2021 but jumped drastically to 1,17,308 in 2022.

The states which have seen increased number of school dropout rates are Assam Board of Secondary Education, Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education, Gujarat Secondary & Higher Secondary Education Board, Board of School Education Haryana (HSEB), Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education, Board of Secondary Education Madhya Pradesh, Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad Uttar Pradesh and more.

Mantha believes that the enrollments have gone down due to an increase in the cost of education in several states, and also due to a decrease in the number of government schools. “Some states such as Maharashtra have seen a decline in the number of government schools as more private schools are opening up. This has increased the cost of education in the country, which leads to a decline in enrollments and rise in the dropout rate. States like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, where the fees is less, are bound to see an increase in registrations,” he said.

He also shared that in a study conducted by AICTE back in his time, the survey showed that students of North East were not willing to take up hardcore skills courses, and therefore the registration in Science would be less as compared to other states which are also thickly populated. The same is proven by the data as states such as Manipur, Mizoram, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Tripura do not feature in the top 10 of the list of total number of students who passed the Science stream.

Manipur which is on the second spot in terms of share of pass out students only has 18,518 students who passed the exam. The number of students who passed the Science stream in Mizoram was 1676, 30956 in Assam, 2116 in Meghalaya, 1899 in Nagaland and 3441 in Tripura.