Bengaluru: The Second PU pass percentage hits a six-year low at 52.38 percent and girls with 60.28 percent have outperformed boys. The results were announced in Bengaluru yesterday by Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait and PU Board Director C. Shikha.

This is the lowest pass percentage in the last six years and marks a drop of 4.82 percent compared to last year. Out of the 6,79,061 students who appeared for the exam, 3,55,697 lakh have passed. Minister Tanveer Sait attributed the dip to more stringent examination reforms initiated this year.

In 2016, 57.2 percent students passed, in 2015 it was 60.54 percent, in 2014 it was 60.47 percent, in 2013, 59.36 percent students passed and in 2012, 57.03 percent students had cleared the examinations.

In keeping with the usual trend, girls with 60.28 percent outperformed boys, who were 15.5 points behind them at 44.74 percent. Udupi (90.01), Dakshina Kannada (89.92) and Uttara Kannada (71.99) secured the top three slots while Bidar (42.05) was at the bottom. Kodagu bagged the fourth place with 70.83 percent and Chamarajanagar stood at 9th place with 65.34 percent.

Mysuru district has recorded a pass percentage of 59.03 to secure 14th place in State, a 3.34 percent less than the previous year. The pass percentage in 2016-17 was 62.09. A total of 29,565 students had appeared for the II PU examination, held from March 9 to 27. Out of them, 17,533 have secured pass marks. As many as 17,684 boys and 18,694 girl students had appeared for the examination. Of them, 7,929 boys and 11,282 girls have passed the exams.

ARTS STREAM PERFORMANCE POOR

The performance by students in the Arts stream has been poor with pass percentage standing at 35.05 this year which is 7.07 percentage points lower than that of the last year. 60.09 percent students have passed in commerce and 60.71 percent students have passed in Science. The performance of arts students has been consistently poorer than that of students of other streams. In 2016, the pass percentage had dipped by 9 points from that of the previous year.

While Tanveer Sait claimed that randomisation of colleges where students took the exam was responsible for a fair examination process, educationists said the decline in the pass percentage was because no grace marks were allotted during the evaluation stage.

On poor pass percentage of Arts students, Shikha said that a majority of students pursuing Arts hailed from rural areas. Many of these students work while they are pursuing their Pre-University course to augment the income of their family and this might be the reason for the poor performance.

As many as 10,936 II PU students have scored 100 percent in 22 subjects in all this year. Last year, the number stood at 10,001.

The number of colleges with zero pass percentage has increased from 91 last year to 132 this time.

Meanwhile, the number of colleges with 100 percent results has declined to 37 from 41 last year.

Colleges with maximum 100 percent results and zero pass percentage are in the unaided category. While 127 colleges have zero pass percentage, 32 unaided colleges have 100 percent passes.

Minister Tanveer Sait said they would initiate stringent action against colleges that have registered poor results. He, however, said closing down these colleges was a “drastic” measure and was not feasible.

STUDENTS, Remember these dates

May 19- Last date to apply for scanned copies of  answer scripts. Rs. 400 per scanned copy.

May 24- Last date to apply for revaluation. Fee per subject is Rs. 1,260. If student scores more or less after the revaluation, it will be published on the department’s website. The previously scored marks will not be re-stored and the evaluators’ decision will be final. There is no provision for appeal in this regard.

May 24- Last date to apply for re-totalling. No fee for re-totalling. Results will be published on department website.

May 23- Last date to pay fee for supplementary exams. Colleges must remit the fee amount to treasury in a single slot by May 24.

May 25- Last date for colleges to submit applications with original challans to Deputy Director’s Office.