VIJAYAWADA: Pandemic Corona hugely impacted the SSC 2020 results in AP, leading to a drop in the pass percentage to 67.26 per cent. The absence of exams for the past two years, promotion of students to the next classes, late-start of schools, absence of learning skills, change of exam patterns and poor preparations have been cited as the main causes for the drop in the results percentage.
Notably, English medium students registered 77.55 per cent pass and Telugu medium limited it to 43.97 per cent pass.
A big worry was that over two lakh students failed out of a total of 6,15,908 students. Hence, the government has decided to provide special coaching to these students to enable them to appear for instant supplementary exams and pass it.
The students who wrote the SSC examination 2022 have forgotten to write the annual exams that covered the entire syllabus for the past two years. These students were promoted to the next class without writing the exams in view of the Corona crisis.
The education department had tried to conduct the examination during 2020 and 2021 despite the Covid sway and by taking all precautionary measures to benefit the students and their future, so that they will write the annual exams. But hurdles were posed by political parties, especially the main opposition party, which was dead set against conducting the classes and holding the exams. The TD argued that this would mean risking the lives of the students during the Covid pandemic
The other factor that resulted in the poor results was the online classes wherein there was very poor attention at personal level by the teachers on the students. Further, the absence of proper internet connectivity and mobile phones also had an impact on the students.
On the other hand, students were confident that the fourth wave of Covid would see them getting promoted once again and this also affected the results.
Education experts said the education department had minimized the Tenth class syllabus as the number of working days were cut short for the academic year 2021-22. The classes were started in August 2021, late by two months, against the normal start in June.
Even the number of papers for the board exam was also cut short to seven papers instead of 11.
During the crucial juncture, the teachers were busy taking part in various activities, stalling the teaching activities, to get the PRC, DA and other benefits from the government, by way of organising rallies, meetings and dharnas. This was also a reason behind the poor Class 10 results witnessed this time, the worst in a span of 15 years.
Students, D Raju and K Surya said multiple factors impacted the SSC results during the pandemic season of two years. They said many students got addicted to mobile phones and other gadgets, playing games, videos and watching movies. Also, many students hoped for a continuation of the Corona impact through the third and fourth waves and government passing all at the SSC without exams. But, the weakening of the third wave and absence of a fourth wave dashed their hopes.
Student G Ramana said that for the past two years, there were no regular classes and for most of the time, the students were at home. The online classes started, but it was not that effective and the students could not gain the required knowledge. All students below average had to face the brunt of failure, he said.
APTF district general secretary Nagaraju said there existed an acute staff crunch at schools right from the primary level to Class 10. Handling large numbers of students by an inadequate number of staff was one of the reasons for the poor results, he felt.
