CBSE Class 10, 12 pass percentages up slightly, still below 2022 peak

Pass percentages for CBSE Class 10 and 12 rose marginally this year to 93.66 per cent and 88.39 per cent respectively, but remained lower than 2022 levels

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Tuesday declared results for both Classes 10 and 12, with the overall pass percentage seeing a marginal increase of around 0.6 per cent and 0.41 per cent over last year respectively.

 

While the overall pass percentage for Class 10 rose from 93.60 per cent in 2024 to 93.66 per cent this year, the figure for Class 12 was 88.39 per cent in 2025 compared to 87.98 per cent last year.

 

The numbers, however, still fall below the 2022 high of 94.40 per cent and 92.71 per cent for Class 10 and 12 respectively.

 

Experts attributed the decline to learning gaps and the loss of writing skills during the pandemic, among other factors.

 

“The pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, when learning moved online, changed the dynamics of education in the country. Not only were students forced to adapt, teachers were also compelled to innovate,” said a teacher with one of the country’s biggest coaching centres, on condition of anonymity.

 

However, he added that the percentage is slowly creeping upwards since the sudden fall of 2023, when the number of students passing Class 12 dropped by around 5 per cent, while those passing Class 10 saw a marginal dip of over 1 per cent.

 

The number of students scoring 90 per cent and above also declined compared to last year. For Class 10, the number of students scoring 90 per cent or more fell to 199,944, from 212,384 last year.

 

Similarly, for Class 12, the number of students scoring 90 per cent and above dropped to 111,544 compared to 116,145 last year.

 

This comes after CBSE revamped its assessment practices for the academic session 2023–24 by introducing more competency-based questions in its examinations.

 

It also reduced the weightage given to short- and long-answer-type questions. The move was part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

 

This year, girls outperformed boys in both Class 10 and 12 results by a margin of 2.3 per cent and 5.9 per cent respectively.

 

In terms of centres, Vijayawada, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai and Bengaluru saw pass percentages exceeding 95 per cent. A combined total of 4.06 million students appeared for CBSE board examinations for both classes.