Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education has set a record in pass percentage that it will possibly never be able to break. Announcing the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) results, the board revealed that out of 23,967 students who had registered for the Class X exam, 23,900 passed, registering a pass percentage of 99.72. Just 67 students have failed the year. Admittedly, the pass percentage has been rising in the last few years, which the Goa Board in the past has attributed to the performance of the students who have also been aided by the sports merit marks and internal marks. The pass percentage this year, however, crosses all expectations and perhaps even limits. It came as close to a cent per cent result as it possibly could.
This has been a huge leap in the pass percentage from the previous year. If one looks back, there has been a steady increase in the pass percentage from 2016 onwards. That year it was 90.93 per cent and went up to 91.57 per cent in 2017. A year later it was at 91.27 per cent but rose again in 2019 to 92.47 per cent. Last year in 2020, despite the examinations starting late in May due to the pandemic lockdown that had been in place in April and the tension under which students answered their first public exam, the pass percentage jumped a little higher to 92.96. But nobody could have expected the rise that the percentage took this year, leaping from 92.96 per cent to 99.72 per cent.
This year again Covid played a role, as due to the pandemic situation prevailing in the months of April and May the SSC exams had been cancelled and students who had registered for the exam were to be assessed based on the objective criterion developed by the Board. Result committees were formed in schools to evaluate the students and prepare the result depending on the internal assessment conducted by schools based on marks scored in the different exams during the academic year and performance at Class IX. When over 99 per cent of the students pass and there is a leap of 7 per cent over the result of the previous year, there are questions that come to mind on the method of assessment.
Was the assessment conducted in a scientific manner? Apparently not. The giveaway here is in the statement of the chairman of the Goa Board who said, “The students were declared failed as they either did not appear for any of the tests or exams conducted by the school during the academic period or over non-submission of projects.” The inference from this statement is that had these 67 students appeared for all the tests or submitted their projects they would have passed. So what exactly was the criteria that was used for the assessment? Was it appearance at the exams and submission of projects? When an exam is held a student is assessed by the subject content that they are able to recall from the classroom teaching during the year. Was this followed?
Last year, due to the pandemic the Class IX students had been promoted to Class X en masse. There were no detentions. With the SSC result that has been declared, it now appears that the no fail policy of the government that was up to Class VIII has been now extended up to Class X. We don’t, however, know what will be the fate of the students of the Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) whose result will be declared later this month. They too have not had exams and the results will be based on the internal assessment. Going by the Class X results, the Class XII students will now be awaiting their results with heightened anticipation.
