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Poor Show For Bihar In 2016 Class 10 Results, Pass Percentage At Less Than Half

Less Than Half Of The Class 10 Students In Bihar Managed To Pass This Year
INDORE, INDIA - MARCH 1: Students appearing the class 12th CBSE exam at St. Paul School on March 1, 2016 in Indore, India. CBSE class X and XII board exams have begun from today and will end on March 28 and April 22, respectively. This year, over 25 lakh students has registered for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams, around 6.3 per cent more than last year's total. Nearly 15 lakh students are expected to appear for 10th and over 10.5 lakh for the 12th exams. The exams for class 10th will continue till March 28th and class 12th exams will end on April 22nd. (Photo by Arun Mondhe/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
INDORE, INDIA - MARCH 1: Students appearing the class 12th CBSE exam at St. Paul School on March 1, 2016 in Indore, India. CBSE class X and XII board exams have begun from today and will end on March 28 and April 22, respectively. This year, over 25 lakh students has registered for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams, around 6.3 per cent more than last year's total. Nearly 15 lakh students are expected to appear for 10th and over 10.5 lakh for the 12th exams. The exams for class 10th will continue till March 28th and class 12th exams will end on April 22nd. (Photo by Arun Mondhe/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

A year after mass cheating in Bihar's schools captured international attention, stricter protocols for conducting exams in the state seem to have had a direct impact on students' results. According to reports, less than half students who gave the class 10 exams in the state have managed to pass.

"The results are not as expected," state education minister Ashok Choudhary told journalists. "But, they show the actual merit of students. Those who have passed will be able to clear competitive exams."

Around 15.47 lakh students (more than 1.5 million) appeared for the centrally-administered exams this year. While more than half of them failed, which is a drop of more than 28 percent from last year, only 10.86 percent managed to get first division marks, reported The Times of India. Last year, more than a fifth of the students had passed with first division marks in Bihar.

In this photograph taken on 19 March, 2015, Indian relatives of students taking school exams climb the walls of the exam building to help pass candidates answers to questions in Vaishali in the eastern state of Bihar.

Results indicate that the students who have done well in Bihar are concentrated in only a few good schools, and that the majority of schools in Bihar continue to have very poor results.

Bihar had made international headlines last year when parents of students giving the class 10 exams scaled the school building walls to pass them answers to questions in the exam. At the time, the state education minister PK Shahi had said, "Over 14 lakh students are taking the examination. You tell us what can the government do to stop cheating id parents and relatives are not ready to cooperate? Should the government give orders to shoot them?"

Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav too had made some bizarre suggestions on the matter, claiming that even if students copied directly from the school books, they would still fail. More than three-quarters of the students managed to pass these exams last year. This year's poor showing is a fallout of the state administration's cracking down on cheating, according to officials.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.