HS 3rd sem results show record pass rate but fewer students score 90%+
Times of India | 1 November 2025
Kolkata: The West Bengal Higher Secondary Council on Friday announced the results of the third semester or first part of higher secondary examinations, where 93.7% students — a record since 2011 — cleared the exams.
Though the pass percentage increased, the percentage of top scorers scoring above 80% and 90% was very low since the exams were conducted based on MCQ-type questions on the OMR sheets. Pritam Ballav and Aditya Narayan Jana from Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Purulia, topped with 99% marks.
According to the data received from the council, 22.4% of students scored between 60% and 70% while 13.7% scored between 70% and 80%, 4.7% scored between 80% and 90%, and only 0.5% of students scored above 90%.
Though it was expected that the MCQ-type questions would be helpful for high scores, in reality, the number of top scorers was quite low even compared to the old system. A total of 0.4% students in science, 0.03% in commerce and 0.1% in humanities scored above 90%.
WBCHSE President Chiranjib Bhattacharjee said: "Students faced their first such exam where they answered on the OMR sheets. Our focus was to prepare our students for competitive exams, and for this, we instructed paper setters to create a mixture of tricky and moderate questions. Students who prepared for entrance tests, especially science students, are quite familiar with such a question pattern, but students of other streams scored comparatively less. We will analyse the matter."
CM Mamata Banerjee posted on X: "For the first time in the country, the HS examination was conducted in a semester system. I thank everyone involved for organizing this massive undertaking successfully. To those who did not achieve good results this time, I would say, do not be discouraged and strive for better results in the fourth semester."
In the top 10 merit list, among 69 students, only one is from the commerce background while the rest are science students. In the top 10, 24 students are from Purulia Ramakrishna Mission while 31 students are from Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission. Swami Jnanarupananda, the headmaster of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, said: "Since the format was new, we stressed on practice so that students get used to it. We prepare our students for competitive exams, which helped them prepare for the HS exams as well."
This year, 6.6 lakh candidates registered for the exam, and 6.5 lakh appeared in the exams conducted from Sept 8 to 22. The results were published 39 days after the last exam was over. Since it's the first part of the exam, the HS council will not distribute hard copies of marksheets, but if they want, schools can download them from the website.