CBSE Grade 12 Examinations: The UAE Results

This year approximately 5,500 UAE candidates took part in the CBSE Grade 12 examinations held in March/April 2017.

This is a drop of around 2,500 students from 2016 which saw 8,000 UAE candidates.

The Indian High School

Once again, it has been a year of impressive results for the Indian High School, the UAE's Outstanding rated, not-for-profit CBSE school.

The Indian High School (IHS) achieved an impressive 100 percent pass rate for its 522 students who sat for the examination.

Principal Ashok Kumar said in a press release today, "99.8 percent of our students have been placed in the first division".

"Thirty-two, point two percent of students have secured 90 percent and above aggregate marks out of which 9 percent have secured more than 95 percent aggregate."

IHS student, Meghna Savit is the UAE overall 'Topper' with an impressive 98.4 percent in the Science Stream.

The GEMS CBSE Schools

Across the GEMS CBSE network, candidates achieved a 99.9% pass rate in this year’s Grade 12 exams.

Of the 1515 students who appeared for the exam, 295 scored above 90 percent while 255 scored between 85 percent and 90 percent.

GEMS Toppers include: Akash Kunnath Mani from Our Own High School, Al Warqa’a, who scored 98 percent in the Science Stream.

In the Commerce Stream, Smeet Prakashkumar Shah from Our Own English High School, Sharjah Boys scored 98.2 percent.

Hyfa Sunil Azeez from Our Own English High School Girls scored 96.6 in the Humanities Stream.

Changes to the Maths Exam

However, the Grade 12 CBSE results 2017 have not been without controversy.

Changes to the maths examination meant that students for the first time faced '2 point' questions.

Reactions to the paper were mixed, with many commentators stating that most could answer 80 to 90 percent as they were directly from the text book.

Still with maths, the number of questions increased this year from 26 to 29 with a new percentage of easy, average and difficult questions also changing. 

Moderation Issues

Possibly the biggest issue faced by Grade 12 candidates this year was the battle between the CBSE Board and the Delhi High Court to remove the moderation process from the marking system.

Moderation has been used for years by the CBSE Board, the process sees 'grace marks' given to candidates, which according to NDTV.com, allows for "uniformity in the evaluation of exam papers".

The moderation system allows for additional marks to be given to candidates in specific regions or year groups which failed to perform to the standard of the rest of their global examination cohort.

However, several State Boards were found to be 'tweaking' the formula.

Following an analysis by the CBSE Board, the authority called for a halt to the process.

The action prompted the Delhi High Court to deem the decision unfair as the examination process was already in process. 

Until this weekend, the result release date, and indeed even the decision whether states could or could not moderate this year's examination papers was uncertain as the CBSE Board continued to appeal the Delhi High Court decision.

However, the moderation debacle does not end there.

The CBSE Board had already managed to persuade several of the state education boards to drop the moderation system for 2017.

This means that several states which declared their results before the case was resolved have proceeded with no moderation.

According to press reports, results in these states have significantly lower pass percentages.