All Unsuccessful Class 12 Bengal Board Students Declared Passed After Protests

After days of protests by several unsuccessful students, the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) Monday announced that all the unsuccessful candidates of the Class 12 board examination were declared as passed.

Estimating the figure of unsuccessful candidates to be around 18,000, the WBCHSE told reporters that the council sympathetically revised the evaluation given the difficulties faced by the students in the COVID-19 situation and declared all of them passed.

To a question, if all the 18,000 candidates who had failed in the exams were declared as having passed, council president Mahua Das told PTI, "Yes, excepting those who had not enrolled themselves for class 12. Unfortunately, some of the students who had not enrolled themselves for class 12 had also participated in the agitation."

However, Ms Das did not specify the number of such students.

The candidates have been demanding that they be declared as passed as no examinations were held this year due to the pandemic.

Of the 8,19, 202 higher secondary candidates, 97.69 per cent of them were declared to have passed the examination, results of which were declared on July 22.

An evaluation method was worked out this year based on marks obtained by an examinee in the Madhyamik (Class 10 examination) and the best of four subject scores in class 11 annual examination.

The assessment marks in class 12 practicals in the case of science subjects and projects by students of humanities were added to the evaluation criteria.

The Council president told reporters that all the unsuccessful candidates have been declared passed after review of their 2020 Class 11 annual results in their respective schools and assessment marks for practicals/projects in Class 12.

The results were declared on July 22 and since then the students, who had failed, staged demonstrations across the state prompting the state government to ask the Council president for reviewing the results.

"All these students, having got revised mark sheets, had either fared very poorly in their Class 11 annual exams or failed in the practicals or projects in Class 12 and hence were declared unsuccessful in the evaluation criteria. Some were even found to have appeared for some subjects in the annual examination and not for all the papers. They were included among those who had failed," Ms Das said.

Referring to the agitation by unsuccessful HS candidates since the publication of results, the Council president said "after talks with the government, we have sympathetically considered the hardships faced by those who had not passed the exams and evaluated their results."

Ms Das said those who were dissatisfied with the poor grades awarded to them will be able to sit for exams once the situation improves, provided they formally apply for the same.

Students had blocked roads, damaged furniture in schools, gheraoed teachers for several days demanding they be declared passed after the publication of HS results.

The pass percentage of class 10 Bengal board examination this year, where about 10 lakh students had appeared, was 100 per cent.