Amid minor confusion, the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA) on Saturday declared the results for High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) exams conducted in February-March this year. Certain interesting trends emerged from the results this year which were declared within 45 days of completion of the examinations.
For starters, the overall pass percentage recorded this year, that is, 75.7 per cent, was the highest ever recorded (excluding 93.1 per cent in Covid-affected 2021) since 1993.
This was also better than the overall pass percentage recorded in 2023 of 72.6 per cent, highlighting progress. Compared to the same metric a decade ago in 2014, this was a sharp increase from 61.4 per cent.
Out of the 33 districts in Assam, Chirang stood out as the best performing district where out of 6,249 candidates who appeared in the exam, 5,705 passed culminating in a pass percentage of 91.2 per cent. This was followed closely by the Nalbari district where out of 10,724 appearants, 9,456 passed with the district recording an overall pass percentage of 88.1 per cent. Dima Hasao witnessed the third best result in terms of pass percentage with 87.3 per cent as 2,778 students out of 3,182 cleared the exams.
In the Kamrup Metro district, 12,775 students appeared in the HSLC 2024 exams out of which 10,763 passed as the overall pass percentage stood at 84.2 per cent.
On the other side of the scale, Udalguri, Dhubri and Cachar were the worst performing districts. Udalguri recorded the lowest pass percentage of 60.9 per cent followed by Dhubri at 62.6 per cent and Cachar at 63.1 per cent.
Out of the total of 4,19,078 candidates who appeared in the HSLC 2024 exams, female candidates were more in number at 2,31,164 compared to 1,87,904 male candidates. This year, there were 10 transgender candidates to appear in the exams.
However, the total pass percentage among male candidates was higher at 77.3 per cent compared to what female candidates secured at 74.4 per cent. Among male candidates, 1,45,263 out of 1,87,904 cleared the exams compared to 1,72,046 out of 2,31,164 among female candidates.
Meanwhile, transgender candidates recorded a pass percentage of 80 per cent, the most among all the genders, with eight out of the 10 candidates clearing the exams.
Additionally, male candidates performed better individually as well with 3,436 securing distinction marks (above 510 out of 600) compared to female candidates at 2,956. While on the other hand, 10,350 female candidates secured star marks (450 and above up to 509) compared to male candidates at 10,202.
None of the transgender candidates featured on this list, highlighting a probable disparity.