Girls outshine boys in Arts and Commerce streams of higher secondary examination, Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: After a prolonged wait, the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) announced the annual higher secondary (plus two) results of Arts, Commerce and Vocational streams on Friday.
The overall pass percentages recorded in three streams are 65.89% in Arts, 70.26% in Commerce and 52.62% in vocational stream. The average pass rate in Arts and Commerce streams recorded a marginal drop compared to that of the previous year's pass rate of 68.79% and 74.91% respectively.
School and mass education minister Samir Ranjan Dash said CCTV surveillance in examination centres as the main reason for drop in pass rate."All examination centres were put under CCTV surveillance leading to check in malpractice and thereby drop in the pass percentage," he said.
The council authorities blamed elections and cyclone Fani for the delay in publication of results. However, the council had announced the results of science stream on June 3. "We faced lots of difficulties for evaluation and tabulation of results due to failure of electricity and internet. Even today we managed to announce the results with many difficulties," said chairman of the council, Amarendra Patnaik.
Yet again, girls outshone the boys in all the three streams. In Arts 73.99% girls passed compared to 55.80% boys, in Commerce 74.52% girls passed compared to 67.91% boys while in vocational stream 57.86% girls passed against 47.92% boys, official sources said.
In Arts stream only three students scored above 90% marks while in Commerce 31 students scored above 90% in the state. Shivani Priyadarshini Patri of Shailabala Women's Higher Secondary School scored highest mark of 90.01% while Puja Sahoo and Lipsa Rani Sahoo of Ravenshaw Higher Secondary School secured the second position with 90% marks.
In Commerce stream Lakshmi Agarwal of Keonjhar Higher Secondary School topped the state with 95% marks while Rinky Rai of Kesinga Higher Secondary School became second with 94% and Visakha Gupta of Ravenshaw Higher Secondary School became third with 93% marks.
Among the districts Balasore districts recorded highest pass percentage in Arts and Vocational streams while Khurda district registered highest pas percentage in Commerce stream. Nabarangpur and Deogarh remained the lowest performing district.
Two colleges registered nil results in Arts stream while four colleges recorded nil results in Commerce stream. "All these schools that recorded nil results are private schools and strict action will be taken against them. We will also conduct regular inspections in private colleges to ensure infrastructure and teachers' vacancies," said Dash.