DNA Exclusive: Job scarcity in India, and hidden challenges of CBSE results

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Friday (July 30) analyses if the students who have received their class 12 board results would be able to get admission in colleges and later receive job offers. The irony is that 16 per cent of those students who somehow manage to admission in colleges., struggle to get a job.

New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education declared and recorded the highest ever pass percentage of 99.37 in this year's class 12 results, with girls outshining boys by a slender margin of 0.54 per cent. The special thing about this year's result was that about 99.5 per cent of students passed the examination. This is a record in itself, as the number of students who passed last year was around 90 per cent, whereas in the year 2019, only 83 per cent of the children managed to pass the examination.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the schools remained closed for the entire academic year. In fact, the board examinations could not even be held due to the COVID surge. Hence, the CBSE class 12 results 2021 are not issued on the basis of the performance in examinations, but on the basis of the performance of students in classes 10, 11 and 12.

A total of 13.69 lakh regular candidates had registered for the class 12 exam this year, out of which 1296318 students passed the class 12 examination. It means that 0.67 per cent children did not suceed in clearing the examination.

At least 99.67 per cent of girls and 99.13 per cent of students have passed. Students who are not happy with these results can re-appear between August 15-September 15, to improve on their scores. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan extended their congratulations to the students who received their results today.

Now, a bigger question which lies ahead is that how will such a large number of passed out children will manage to get admission in colleges and later get jobs. Every year about 1.5 crore children appear in class 12 board exams in India. A few days ago, the Supreme Court had intervened on holding class 12 board exams and ordered all the education boards to declare the 12th results latest by July 31.

Like CBSE, boards of most of the states have decided to release the results on the basis of performance in class 12th and previous classes. Now, if on average 80 or 90 per cent of the children manage to pass in the rest of the boards too, then this year the total number of students clearing the class 12 examination will be anywhere between 1.20 crore to 1.35 crore. 

Although there are a sufficient number of colleges and universities in India, most of them are not in good condition, and there is a shortage of seats.

According to this year's QS World Ranking, only three educational institutions in India are included in the top 200 universities of the world.

Among these, IIT Bombay is at number 172, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore at number 185 and IIT Delhi is at number 193. Whereas, only 22 universities of India are included in the top thousand universities of the world. This means that every year, a large number of students are clearing the class 12 board exams in comparison to fewer educational institutions providing quality education to them. 

In view of the absence of board examinations, what's happening is that the number of children clearing the class 12 examinations is increasing every year. In 2020, 98.62 per cent of students passed in CBSE examination in Kendriya Vidyalayas, whereas this time, the number reached 100 per cent. In government schools, at least 95 per cent of children passed last year whereas this time, 99 per cent of children have passed.

The number of candidates scoring above 95 per cent has increased from 38,686 last year to 70,004 this year. This is double the number compared to the previous year. However, the number of candidates scoring between 90-95 per cent has gone down from 1,57,934 to 1,50,152.

The pass percentage of private schools has increased by over 11 per cent since last year. Only 6,149 students have been placed under compartment as against 87,650 students last year.