VISAKHAPATNAM: Online education during the Covid-19 pandemic has been cited as one of the main reasons for the poor performance of class X students in the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) region. The lack of uniformity in teaching methods and absenteeism also had an impact on the success rate.

Nine of the total 27 Civic Corps schools had pass rates below 50%. MVDM High School near the old post office in town had the lowest pass rate of 34.88%.

V. Srinivasa Rao, the father of an SSC student who failed at GVMC school, told the Deccan Chronicle, “One of the reasons I feel my son’s failure in tenth grade is that the students and teachers did not pay attention to the studies. Coronavirus protocols and online courses have marred the teaching model. I bought a new smart phone for my son for online classes. He ended up playing video games in his spare time.

One of the teachers at K. Colony High School in Burma Colony, where the passing percentage is 48.35, said, “The exam pattern is not good. It is impossible to test a student’s abilities in a single test. Sometimes a smart student may not pass the main exam just because of illness or some personal reason.

The teachers of KDPM high school pointed out that most of the schools with a low passing percentage are in slums, where student attendance is very low compared to students who care about education.

“Strict conduct of exams following massive copying and paper leak complaints is also one of the reasons for the lower pass rate. It is not advisable to achieve a pass percentage higher than 75%” , said Sanyasinayudu, a retired teacher from Akkayyapalem.

When contacted, GVMC Deputy Education Officer D. Srinivas said, “We have not received any official indication from the government as to the reasons for the low pass rate in the schools. are only speculated on social media.”

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