This year’s Madhyamik results were declared today which showed that the pass percentage is 86.15 per cent, a tad lower than last year’s 86.60 per cent.

Announcing the results, president of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Ramanuj Ganguly said there is a significant rise in the number of female candidates 3,76,068 in comparison to male candidates 3,06,253. Devdutta Majhi from Katwa Durgadasi Chaudhurani Girls High School in East Burdwan stood first, securing 697 out of 700, or 99.57 per cent.

Subham Paul from Burdwan Municipal High School came joint second with a score of 98.71 per cent (691 marks). Rifat Hasan Sarkar stood joint second from Ramkrishna Mission Vivekananda Vidyamandir from Malda. Overall 118 pupils stood within the first 10 from 16 districts.

There are 6 joint rankers for 3rd and 4 for 4th position. One of the highlights, this year, has been that students securing above 60 per cent are 13.67 per cent. The board this year, apart from grading in individual subjects, an overall grade has been awarded to assess the general performance of the students. Another feature this year has been the introduction of QR code in mark sheets and certificates for authentication.

District-wise, Kolkata with 93.75 per cent stood third, followed by West Midnapore at 92.13 per cent. East Midnapore has the highest pass percentage at 96.81 per cent with Kalimpong coming second with 94.13 per cent. The overwhelming success rate of children with special needs is 88.81 per cent. Total number of candidates appeared was 6,82,321, much less than last year, when more than 10 lakh students took the exam.

Successful male candidates this year are 89.76 per cent while for females, 83.05 per cent. Next year, the Madhyamik exams will start on 2 February and end on 12 February.

“This is because from the experience of last year, the conditions created due to one byelection, we want students to write their exams peacefully next year. I along with my colleagues visited the districts during and based on the inputs, we decided so.

The students will be able to write the exams in a peaceful atmosphere and the weather condition will also be good during February. It is always better to bring out the results at the earliest,” said Mr Ganguly.

In a later notification the board has announced that applications for post publication scrutiny and post publication review of answer scripts would be through online and for this the website www.wbbsedata.com has to be verified.