Madhyamik bags highest success rate

TT, May 27: Madhyamik 2017 has notched up a success rate of more than 85 per cent - the highest ever in the history of the examination.

The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, which conducts the Madhyamik exam, announced the results today.

Many teachers Metro spoke to throughout the day said the success rate - 85.65 per cent, to be precise - was once considered impossible to achieve, given the conservative evaluation pattern followed by the education board.

This year's pass figure is 2.91 per cent more than last year's 82.74 and 11.08 per cent more than 2007's 74.57.

"The success rate has crossed the 85-per cent mark for the first time in the history of Madhyamik examination. This is quite an achievement, especially so if you consider the huge number of examinees," board president Kalyanmoy Ganguly said.

Teachers and board insiders are attributing the rise in the success rate to a series of initiatives the board has taken.

DHRUBA MITRA 

Hooghly Branch Government School

SALUTE TO TEEN HERO

Metro speaks to one of the examinees whose struggle makes his marks shine brighter 

DHRUBA MITRA 

Hooghly Branch Government School 

His father delivers newspaper in the morning and runs a roadside stall later in the day. Dhruba made his father proud today, scoring 96.4 per cent in Madhyamik. 

When Dhruba went to collect his mark sheet from the school, father Madan had just laid out garments at his stall for sale. 

He was overjoyed on hearing Dhruba’s marks but only for a brief moment. Then the reality dawned on him — how long can he continue to afford his son's education with the Rs 5,000 he earns every month? 

“He wants to study science. The cost of education will double at the HS level. There will be additional pressure if he sits for the engineering or medical entrance test. I don’t know how I will be able to manage,” Madan said.

Dhruba, aware of the financial constraints, spends the scholarship of Rs 350 he gets from the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training every month on buying exercise books and stationery. 

He has scored 100 in math, 99 in physical science, 96 in life science, 99 in history, 97 in geography, 95 in Bengali and 90 in English. Subhankar Chowdhury

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"The syllabus in each subject has been revised, the exam system changed and the question pattern tweaked. These initiatives have probably helped the students score better," a board official said.

"This was the first batch to write the exam under the changed syllabus and in the new question pattern. This year there were more objective-type and multiple-choice questions than previous years.... For objective-type questions, subjective marking cannot be applied. An answer is either correct or wrong. So, the students worked hard and, obviously, that helped them scored more marks," said Gopal Nandi, the headmaster of Jodhpur Park Boys' School.

The short-answer type and multiple-choice questions were introduced in 2012. But the number of such questions was not the same in all subjects till last year, a source in the board said. Under the new system, at least 40 per cent of the marks have been allotted to short-answer type and multiple-choice questions in each subject.

A teacher in a Madhyamik school, however, warned: "The rise in the success rate is an encouraging development but it is too early to draw a conclusion. We have to consider the success rate of the following years before saying that the new system has worked."

As many as 10,61,123 candidates appeared in Madhyamik 2017.