NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) declared the Class XII board examination results on May 13, 2026, with the overall pass percentage falling to 85.20%, down from 88.39% last year. While more than 15 lakh students cleared the examination, the decline of 3.19 percentage points has triggered discussion among school principals, education experts and students over what changed in this year’s evaluation and examination process.This year also marked the first large-scale use of On-Screen Marking (OSM) for CBSE Class XII answer sheet evaluation. Alongside the transition to digital assessment, several educators pointed to tougher question papers in key subjects such as Physics and Mathematics, as well as the growing emphasis on competency-based questions under the National Education Policy framework.Overall pass percentage records declineCBSE data showed that 17,80,365 students registered for the Class 12th examinations, while 17,68,968 appeared. Out of them, 15,07,109 students passed the examination.CBSE Class XII result comparison
The difference in the overall pass percentage stood at 3.19 percentage points.Girls continued to outperform boys in the examinations. Girls recorded a pass percentage of 88.86%, while boys secured 82.13%. Transgender candidates achieved a pass percentage of 100%. Principals say tougher papers played a major roleA government school principal, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the fall in results could not be attributed only to digital evaluation.“Result going down by 3% is not primarily because of online checking. It could be because of the difficulty level. I was expecting the result would be down by 10-15%. Now this is not the case,” the principal said.When asked why he had expected a sharper decline, the principal smiled and said he was still trying to understand the pattern himself.“I will let you know later as I am also trying to figure it out,” he said with a laugh.The principal added that concerns over the difficulty level of certain Science and Mathematics papers had surfaced across multiple schools during the examination period itself. According to him, teachers and students had particularly flagged portions of the Physics paper and some Mathematics sets for being lengthier and more application-based than expected. He said several schools had anticipated an impact on overall scores soon after the examinations concluded, especially among average and borderline students.Educationists point to impact of On-Screen MarkingMr. Praneet Mungali, educationist and Trustee at the Sanskriti Group of Schools, Pune, said the introduction of OSM brought greater rigour to the evaluation process.“The OSM adoption has introduced more rigour in the process of evaluation. This has reduced human error and is probably the reason for the change in the pass ratio,” he said.He added that a longer trend analysis would be required before drawing conclusions on the exact impact of digital evaluation on overall results.“However, to come up with a definitive conclusion we would need to study the trend for at least the next few years and compare them with the average pass ratios for a few years before the introduction of the OSM. This will allow us to make a firm conclusion about the real pattern,” he said.Mungali also described the shift towards digital evaluation as “the right way forward”.Experts flag impact on borderline studentsPrashant Jain, CEO of Oswaal Books, said the drop in pass percentage was linked to a combination of factors rather than a single reason.“I’d point to three things, in order of weight. First, this is the first year of On-Screen Marking for Class 12, and a transition of that scale always shows up in the numbers. Second, two papers — Physics, and certain sets of Mathematics — were genuinely tougher this year. Third, we’re still seeing the tail of COVID-era learning loss in a cohort that was in Class 8 during 2020-21,” Jain said.According to Jain, OSM did not alter the marking scheme itself, but changed the evaluation environment.“On paper, an examiner can tilt the sheet, hold it closer, flip pages quickly, and read faint pencil work or dense diagrams naturally. On a screen, they can’t. Light handwriting, cramped answers, faint diagrams, and work in the margins are all harder to read digitally,” he said.He further stated that students in the borderline score range may have been affected the most during the transition phase.“The second factor is automated totalling. Under physical evaluation, small addition errors and informal benefit-of-doubt at the totalling stage often worked in the student’s favour. That cushion is gone,” Jain said.Tougher Physics and Mathematics papers emerge as concernJain said school principals across regions had reported that the Physics paper was more difficult than previous years, while certain Mathematics sets also posed challenges to students.“When two high-weightage Science-stream papers get tougher in the same year, you see it directly in the overall pass percentage because Science students are a large share of the cohort,” he said.He also linked the shift to CBSE’s gradual move towards competency-based assessment patterns.“CBSE is progressively moving toward competency-based questions under NEP — case studies, application, reasoning rather than direct recall,” Jain said.Students raise concerns over evaluation processFollowing the declaration of results, several students and social media users posted concerns regarding unexpectedly low marks and the evaluation process.Anurag Tyagi, in a post on X, wrote that “thousands of CBSE Class 12 students are feeling devastated after unexpected low marks” and called for greater transparency in the rechecking process.Another user, identified as @Adhem47073828 on X, alleged that deserving students had received lower marks than expected and demanded manual re-evaluation.CBSE has not issued any statement linking the decline in pass percentage directly to OSM. The board has maintained that the digital system was introduced to improve transparency, reduce human error and streamline evaluation procedures.What changes for the next batchEducation experts said schools may now need to prepare students differently for board examinations under digital evaluation systems. Clear handwriting, structured answers, properly labelled diagrams and step-wise presentation are expected to gain greater importance under OSM-based assessment.Jain said the overall pass percentage could stabilise in the coming years once schools, students and evaluators become fully accustomed to the new system.
