The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has declared the class 12 result 2026, with 17,68,968 students appearing for the exams out of 17,80,365 registered.
Among them, 15,07,109 students passed, resulting in an overall pass percentage of 85.2%, a 3.19 percentage point drop from last year's 88.39%.
Girls outperformed boys by 6.73 percentage points, with Trivandrum recording the highest pass percentage at 95.62% and Prayagraj recording the lowest at 72.43%.
Experts attribute the decline to a combination of factors, including stricter evaluation practices, a greater focus on conceptual understanding under NEP 2020, and the adoption of On-Screen Marking (OSM).
Dr Jyoti Arora, principal of Mount Abu Public School, noted that the trend indicates a gradual shift from rote learning to application-based assessment.
Praneet Mungali, Trustee at the Sanskriti Group of Schools, emphasized the need to study the trend for at least the next few years to make a firm conclusion about the real pattern.
Students can access their marks through official platforms, including results.cbse.nic.in, cbse.gov.in, cbseresults.nic.in, digilocker.gov.in, and results.gov.in, as well as the UMANG mobile app and SMS services.
