More than 6,70,000 students cleared the West Bengal Higher Secondary (Class XII) examinations, the results of which were declared on Wednesday. According to officials, while 7,64,440 students had registered for the examination, 7,55,324 appeared for the exam. The pass percentage for this year was around 90 per cent — a marginal jump over last year.
Addressing a press conference in Kolkata, West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) president Chiranjeev Bhattacharya said, “Around 9,000 students did not appear for the examination. It could be for various reasons and the same will be looked into.” He said while 88.18 per cent of girls cleared the exams, the corresponding figure for boys stood at 92.12 per cent.
The Council will look into the reasons behind the success rate of girls dipping by almost four percentage points compared to the boys, he added.
He said that 42.9 per cent of students secured 60 per cent marks or above while 1.23 per cent examinees shone with 90 per cent marks or more in the top bracket.
The Top 10 ranks were shared by 58 students – 35 boys and 23 girls – from 15 districts. These districts included Hooghly (13), Bankura (nine), South 24 Parganas (seven), Kolkata (five), Purba Bardhman (four), Paschim Medinipur (four), Cooch Behar (three) and Malda (three).
Avik Das from Alipurduar district scored the highest at 99.2 per cent. The second and third rank holders Soumyadeep Saha and Abhishek Gupta hail from Howrah and Malda, respectively. The fourth spot was shared by Pratichi Talukder and Sneha Ghosh.
In terms of pass percentage among districts, at 95.77 per cent, Purba Medinipur emerged at the top, followed by South 24 Parganas (92.87 per cent), Paschim Medinipur (92.78 per cent), Kalimpong (92.51 per cent), Kolkata (92.13 per cent), North 24 Parganas (92.05 per cent) and Hooghly (91.06 per cent).
The batch of successful higher secondary students included 1,87,924 minority candidates. Their pass rate was 86.90 per cent.
The examinations which started on February 16 spanned over 13 days and the results were declared after 69 days.
As per the board officials, the announcement of results was delayed by 10 days over some technical issues.