Mumbai: In an academic downturn, the CBSE Class 12 results declared on Wednesday revealed that the national pass percentage has plummeted to 85.2%–hitting a seven-year low and signalling a sharp correction in student performance across the country. The results paint a sobering picture of post-pandemic academic trends, marked by an over 31% crash in the elite ‘95% club’ with the numbers falling from 24,635 candidates in 2025 to just 17,113 this year.The number of 90% scorers also dropped below the one-lakh mark for the first time in seven years. City principals said the full-scale rollout of the digital evaluation system called On Screen Marking (OSM) could be a primary driver for the dip.The Pune region, which encompasses Maharashtra, mirrored this downward national trend as it saw its pass percentage plummet to 87.32%, a drop of over three percentage points compared to the 90.51% achieved in the previous academic year.The CBSE has now fully implemented On Screen Marking (OSM), with over 98.6 lakh answer books evaluated digitally. However, some educators believe the shift contributed directly to the lower scores.“I believe the lower results this year are largely due to the introduction of online evaluation,” said Nikita Bajaj, headmistress of the Senior Secondary section at R N Podar School. “The correction process has become more standardised and uniform, leaving less room for subjective marking. As a result, scores are being assessed more strictly.”Hari Vashishtha, principal of DPS Navi Mumbai, echoed concerns regarding the digital transition, noting that some teachers, especially in remote areas, are still adapting to the system. He pointed out the disparity in results where some students who scored as high as 99 percentile in the JEE Main exam ended up with much lower scores in the board finals.Kalpana Dwivedi, principal of Balbharati Public School, flagged the Economics paper as particularly challenging. “The evaluation was also quite tough for the paper,” she said. Dwivedi pointed out that the number of students scoring above 90% at her institution dropped from 35 last year to 25 out of 141 students this year.Other school heads noted similar difficulties in core science subjects. Vashishtha said, “The checking for Physics and Chemistry was very tough this time, which really dragged scores.” Vinod Wankhade, principal of Kendriya Vidyalaya IIT Powai, added that while English and Biotechnology remained scoring subjects, students found Chemistry and Physics difficult.Gender trends remained consistent with previous years as girls continued to outshine boys by a substantial margin. A gap of 6.7% was recorded between the two, with girls securing a pass percentage of 88.9% against 82.1% for boys.The highest performing regions remained largely unchanged, with southern strongholds continuing their dominance. Thiruvananthapuram led the country with 95.6% pass rate, followed by Chennai at 93.8% and Bengaluru at 93.2%. While Vijayawada had successfully broken into the top three last year, it was unable to maintain that position, slipping to the fourth spot with a pass percentage of 92.7%.(Inputs by Meghna Rewachand & Suhani Chettiar)
