After the first offline Class 10 board exam since the onset of the pandemic, the Karnataka government announced the results of the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) exams on Thursday, May 19. The exams began on March 28 and ended on April 11. The overall pass percentage for the 2021-22 exam was 85.6%, down from the 99.9% the previous year. Over 7,30,881 students passed the exam this year.
For the last two years, the Karnataka government passed students who narrowly missed out on getting minimum passing marks, keeping in mind the obstacles they faced during the pandemic. However, this year, as exams went offline again, the Karnataka government had said that students will have to obtain minimum passing marks and the government will not be passing the students like it did in the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic.
The Karnataka Secondary Education Department said that the Class 10 exams were conducted in 3,444 centres across the state. Over 8,73,859 students registered, out of which 8,53,436 attended it. Section 144 was clamped in and around 3,444 examination centres across the state and tight police security cover was provided in the vicinity of all examination centres to avoid any showdown or untoward incidents, as the exams were conducted amid the hijab row in the state.
Speaking to reporters after the results were announced, Education Minister BC Nagesh said, "The papers were student friendly this year. The section on objective questions was increased. Since it was the first public exam faced by the students, we did not want to set a very tough paper. Normally, about 20% of the questions would be tough. This year it was only 10% of the questions." He added that the results for the Class 12 PU-II exams will be announced in the third week of June.
As many as 60,000 government officers were put into the exercise of monitoring the examinations. 8,73,846 students were enrolled for the SSLC exams this academic year among which 4,52, 732 are boys and 4,21,110 are girl students.
When the SSLC examinations were held, CCTV cameras were installed in all examination centres. The Education Department conducted separate exams for all subjects similar to the pre-COVID-19 pattern.
With IANS inputs