New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) declared the results of the Class XII board examinations on May 13, 2026, with an overall pass percentage of 85.20 percent, down from 88.39 percent last year. While more than 1.5 lakh students cleared the exam, the shortfall of 3.19 percentage points has sparked debate among school principals, academics and students over what has changed in the assessment and examination process this year.This year also marked the first large-scale use of On-Screen Marking (OSM) for the examination of CBSE Class XII answer sheets. Along with the shift to digital assessment, several educationists point to the increased emphasis on competency-based questions under the National Education Policy Framework, along with tougher question papers in key subjects such as physics and mathematics.Record low overall pass percentageCBSE data shows that 17,80,365 students registered for the Class 12 exams, while 17,68,968 appeared. Out of them 15,07,109 students cleared the exam.CBSE Class XII Result Comparison
The difference in overall pass percentage was 3.19 percentage points.Girls continue to outperform boys in examinations. The pass percentage of girls was 88.86 percent while boys secured 82.13 percent. Transgender candidates secured 100% pass percentage. Principals say that stricter paperwork played an important role.A principal of a government school, on the condition of anonymity, said that digital assessment alone could not be the reason for the drop in results.“3% decrease in result is not mainly due to online checking. It may be due to difficulty level. I was expecting result to decrease by 10-15%. That is no longer the case,” said the principal.When asked why he expected the sharp decline, the principal smiled and said he was still trying to understand the pattern himself.“I’ll tell you later because I’m trying to figure it out too,” he said with a laugh.The principal added that during the examination itself, concerns were raised in several schools over the difficulty level of certain science and mathematics papers. According to him, teachers and students in particular flagged the physics paper and some math sets as being longer and more application-oriented than expected. He said several schools had expected an impact on overall scores shortly after the end of the exams, especially among average and borderline students.Academics point to the effects of on-screen marking.Mr. Praneet Mangali, Educationist and Trustee, Sanskrit Group of Schools, Pune said that the introduction of OSM has made the evaluation process more rigorous.“The adoption of OSM has made the evaluation process more rigorous. This has reduced human error and is probably the reason for the change in pass ratio,” he said.He added that a longer trend analysis would be needed before drawing conclusions about the exact impact of digital assessment on overall outcomes.“However, to come to a definitive conclusion we would need to study the trend of at least the next few years and compare them with the average pass ratio of the few years before OSM was introduced. This will allow us to draw a firm conclusion about the true pattern,” he said.Mangali also described the shift towards digital assessment as “the right way forward”.Experts influence borderline students.Prashant Jain, CEO of Oswal Books, said that the drop in pass percentage is linked to a combination of factors rather than a single cause.“I would point out three things in terms of weightage. First, this is the first year of on-screen marking for Class 12, and the scale change is always reflected in the numbers. Second, two papers—physics, and some sets of math—were genuinely tough this year. Third, we are still seeing a COVID-era learning loss in a cohort that was in Class 8 during 2020-21,” Jain said.According to Jain, OSM did not change the marking scheme itself but changed the assessment environment.“On paper, an examiner can tilt the sheet, hold it close, turn the pages quickly, and read clumsy pencilwork or dense sketches naturally. On screen, they can’t. Light writing, cramped answers, blurred outlines, and marginal work are all difficult to read digitally,” he said.Students in the borderline score range may have been most affected during the transition phase, he added.“The second factor is automatic totals. Under physical assessment, small incremental errors and the informal benefit of the doubt often work in the student’s favor at the total stage. That cushion is gone,” Jane said.Tougher papers in Physics and Mathematics came up as a concernJain said school principals across the region reported that the physics paper was tougher than previous years, while some math sets also posed challenges for students.“When two heavily weighted science-stream papers become difficult in the same year, you see it directly in the overall pass percentage because science students are a big part of that class,” he said.He also linked CBSE’s gradual move towards competency-based assessment patterns.“CBSE is gradually moving towards competency based questions under NEP – case studies, application, reasoning rather than direct memorization,” Jain said.Students express concern over the assessment process.After the announcement of the results, several students and social media users raised concerns regarding the unexpectedly low marks and the evaluation process.Anurag Tyagi wrote in a post on X that “Thousands of CBSE Class 12th students feel devastated after unexpectedly low marks” and demanded more transparency in the rechecking process.Another user, identified as @Adhem47073828 on X, alleged that deserving students scored lower than expected marks and demanded manual re-evaluation.CBSE has not released any statement linking the drop in pass percentage directly to OSM. The board maintained that the digital system was introduced to improve transparency, reduce human errors and streamline the assessment process.What changes for the next batch?Education experts said schools may now need to prepare students differently for board exams under the digital assessment system. Clear handwriting, structured answers, properly labeled diagrams and step-by-step presentation are expected to gain more importance under OSM-based assessment.Jain said the overall pass percentage could stabilize in the coming years once schools, students and evaluators fully acclimatise to the new system.
