Chandigarh: The Punjab School Education Board has given 27 grace marks to a 1.12 lakh students who had failed in one or more subjects in the 2016 Class X exam.
The pass percentage jumped from 39.5% to more than 72.25%. According to the board’s academic regulations, not more than 1% grace marks can be given. The ‘Comparative statement for moderation of result’, has instructed officials how to give grace marks.
The note was approved by board chairperson Tejinder Kaur Dhaliwal, secretary Janak Raj Mehrok and vice-chairman Suresh Tandon on May 24. The results were announced a day later.
This was done on May 23, just six days before the intermediate examination scandal of propping up toppers rocked Bihar.
Their were errors in six question papers and just one small error in the mathematics paper. Once the final formula was applied, 2,45,509 students out of 3.4 lakh students cleared the class X exam. Only 1,34,471 students would have passed if the grace marks had not been given.
All students who were failing were first given 1% grace, which is equivalent to seven marks, and 10 marks in general. These 17 marks could be used in Science, English, Math, Social Science, Hindi and Punjabi. Besides, all students whether they were failing or not, were given four marks grace each in English and Social Science and two marks in Mathematics.
The moderation note justifies the grace marks saying. “The chairperson can moderate the results if the pass percentage has dropped significantly from the previous years”.