Punjab Board Class 12th results 2018: Five border districts fall from top to bottom

PSEB 12th results 2018: Even as the overall pass percentage of Class 12 has improved by over 3 per cent in the state, five border districts of Punjab, which topped in the overall pass percentage last year, have shown abysmal performance this year as they fell to bottom five among all districts in overall pass percentage.

These districts have recorded a fall of 6% to 40 % in over all pass percentage in just one year. Among the five border districts include Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran, Pathankot, which was carved out of Gurdaspur and Ferozpur.
Acting on the allegations that mass copying takes place in the border area schools during board examinations, due to which these districts fare well, this year the education department got installed CCTV cameras in several hypersensitive examination centres of these districts.

In 2017, Gurdaspur emerged on the top among all districts with 76.14 % pass percentage, Tarn Taran stood at number two with 72.31 per cent while Amritsar recorded 71.08 % pass percentage. Pathankot and Ferozpur districts recorded 64.10% and 64.33% pass percentage respectively.

But this year, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Pathankot could not garner even 50 per cent over all pass percentage. The three districts have recorded 31.60%, ( a fall of over 41 per cent), 46.73% (a fall of 30% in overall percentage) and 47.89 % (a fall of 17%) pass percentage respectively. Amritsar too recorded 50.78 per cent result while Ferozpur recorded 58.81 per cent.

A senior officer in the education department said that they were raising this issue since long but all the requests were falling in deaf ears. But this year, Secretary Education, Krishan Kumar, issued strict guidelines against mass copying and stringent actions were taken to curb cheating in exams and this strictness exposed the real story of the border districts this time.

Educationist BS Bhatia said that there is a big need to check mass copying in the examination so that real results could come out and genuine efforts are made for improvement.
News Source (Indian Express)