Over 29 lakh students have failed to clear Class 10 exams in the past year, as per the data provided by the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education.
According to the data made available by the government, 1,89,90,809 students appeared for Class 10 examination, of which 1,60,34,671 students were declared passed and 29,56,138 students failed to progress to the Class 11. The data was revealed by Dharmendra Pradhan, the Minister of Education of India, in Lok Sabha.
The number of students who have failed to qualify the Class 10 exam has increased in the last four years — it was 109800 in 2019, 100812 in 2020, which decreased to 31196 in 2021 but jumped drastically to 117308 in 2022.
Several other boards such as the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), Assam Board of Secondary Education, Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education, Gujarat Secondary & Higher Secondary Education Board, Board of School Education Haryana (HSEB), Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondary Education, Board of Secondary Education Madhya Pradesh, Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad Uttar Pradesh and more have also reported huge number of students who could not qualify Class 10 in the last year.
“The reasons for failure of students in examination depends on various factors viz, not attending the schools, difficulty in following the instruction in schools, lack of interest in the studies, level of difficulty of question paper, lack of quality teachers, lack of support from parents, teachers and schools etc,” Pradhan said.
In terms of dropout rate, majority states and UTs have seen a decline in 2021-22 academic year, except a few like Odisha and Bihar where the dropout rate increased from 39.4 to 49.9 in Odisha and from 41.6 the year before to 42.1 in 2021-22 in Bihar. Even in Goa, the dropout rate increased from 5.3 to 12.4 in 2021-22. In Maharashtra, too, the dropout rate increased from 18.7 to 20.4. (The Indian Express)