Delhi’s CBSE Class XII pass rate has fallen to its lowest level since before the pandemic, dropping to 91.97% this year from 95.18% last year. At first glance, the decline appears sharp. But the national capital is not an outlier. The fall closely mirrors the broader national trend, where pass percentages also dropped after several years shaped by pandemic-era assessment policies and unusually high scores.
Even after the decline, Delhi continues to outperform the national average by a wide margin, and its two CBSE regions – Delhi-West and Delhi-East – remain among the country’s top-performing regions. The numbers suggest not a sudden drop in academic performance, but a return towards pre-pandemic patterns amid tighter and more standardised evaluation.
To understand the dip, three factors matter: the national trend, the post-pandemic performance baseline, and the shift to digital evaluation. Together, these tell why Delhi’s lower pass percentage may not be cause for immediate alarm.
How much has Delhi’s pass percentage fallen?
This year, about 92 out of every 100 students passed in Delhi. Last year, this number was about 95. So, the success rate dropped by around 3 percentage points this year.
The fall is significant because Delhi’s pass percentage has not been this low since 2019, when it stood at 91.87%. In the years after that, the capital’s pass percentage remained higher: 94.39% in 2020, 99.84% in 2021, 96.29% in 2022, 92.22% in 2023, 94.97% in 2024, and 95.18% in 2025.
But is Delhi’s decline unusual?
Not really. The fall in Delhi is closely similar to the national decline in CBSE Class XII results this year.
Nationally, the CBSE Class XII pass percentage fell from 88.39% in 2025 to 85.20% in 2026, a decline of 3.19 percentage points. Delhi’s decline, at 3.21 percentage points, is nearly the same.
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If Delhi had underperformed in isolation, the fall would have been sharper than the national trend, or its regional ranking would have dropped substantially. Neither has happened.
In fact, even after the decline, Delhi’s 91.97% pass rate remains nearly seven percentage points higher than the CBSE national average of 85.20%. Delhi-West and Delhi-East also continued to rank fifth and sixth among CBSE regions, behind Trivandrum, Chennai, Bengaluru and Vijayawada.
Why does the comparison with earlier years need caution?
The years immediately after 2019 were not normal examination years. The pandemic disrupted regular schooling, board examinations and evaluation patterns. In 2020 and 2021, CBSE results were shaped by alternative assessment methods. In 2022, too, CBSE followed a special two-term examination format because of the academic disruption caused by Covid-19.
This makes direct comparison with those years difficult. Delhi’s very high pass percentage of 99.84% in 2021, for instance, cannot be treated as a normal benchmark. Similarly, the higher pass percentages in 2020 and 2022 came during an exceptional academic period.
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So, against this context, the 2026 result appears lower than the recent post-pandemic years, but almost identical to Delhi’s pre-pandemic 2019 level.
What role did digital evaluation play?
A major change this year was CBSE’s introduction of On-Screen Marking (OSM) for Class XII answer sheets. Under this system, answer scripts are scanned and uploaded to a secure platform, allowing evaluators to check them digitally from anywhere, instead of handling physical copies.
CBSE said it evaluated 98,66,622 answer books using this method, calling it its largest exercise so far. The Board stated that the system reduces errors such as totalling and data entry mistakes, eliminates the risk of loss or damage of answer sheets, and removes the need for physical transportation. It also noted that digital evaluation improves efficiency, with evaluators able to check around 30 scripts a day compared to about 20–25 in the traditional system. Overall, CBSE said the aim is to reduce manual intervention, improve accuracy, and increase transparency and accountability.
However, the shift is being discussed as one possible reason for the dip in results. A more standardised evaluation system can reduce subjectivity and ambiguity in marking, especially in cases where earlier physical evaluation may have allowed more discretion. If marking becomes tighter and more uniform, it can show up as a fall in pass percentages and high-score bands.
Were there problems with On-Screen Marking?
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Teachers had flagged several difficulties during the rollout, as this paper reported earlier this month. Evaluators in Delhi complained of blurred scanned answer scripts, slow downloads, server issues, repeated rechecking, and the strain of checking scripts on screen for long hours. Some teachers said they were unable to check more than 20 copies a day in the initial phase.
There were also complaints about evaluated copies having to be reopened because of changed instructions or data not being saved properly. These concerns point to the teething problems in the implementation of a new evaluation system.
But they do not, by themselves, prove that students were marked unfairly. What they do suggest is that CBSE’s evaluation process changed significantly this year, and the result may partly reflect a shift towards more standardised marking.
Did marks fall only in Delhi?
No. The decline has been wider. Nationally, fewer students crossed the high-score thresholds this year. The share of students scoring above 90% fell from 6.59% in 2025 to 5.32% in 2026. The share of students scoring above 95% also fell from 1.47% to 0.97%. Meanwhile, the compartment percentage rose from 7.63% to 9.26%.
