The overall pass percentage in the Class 10 board exams rose to 96.78% after the second board exam, with the performance of 59.95% students improving, according to the results announced by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Saturday.
The second board examination was taken by 663,777 students, representing 26.85% of the over 2.47 million students who appeared for the compulsory Class 10 main board examination held between February and March.
The Class 10 Main Board examination results, announced on April 15, recorded an overall pass rate of 93.70%, marginally higher than 93.66% in 2025.
According to CBSE, 664,027 students registered for the second exam and 663,777 students appeared. Of these, 513,955 students took the improvement exam, and 308,095 (59.95%) succeeded in improving their performance during the main exam. Another 149,822 students appeared in the booth category, of which 78,503 (52.40%) passed the exam, an improvement of 3.72 percentage points over the booth pass rate of 48.68% recorded in 2025.
After incorporating the better grades obtained in the second board examination held between May 15 and 21, the overall passing percentage increased by 3.08 percentage points to 96.78% – an increase of 3.12 percentage points from last year’s overall passing percentage of 93.66%.
“The second board examination provided students who qualified for the 2026 Main Board Examination an additional opportunity to improve their performance. Accordingly, for regular students of 2026, better performance is taken into consideration for preparing the final result,” CBSE Controller of Examinations Sanyam Bhardwaj said in a statement.
The Class 10 batch of 2026 is the first batch to be assessed under CBSE’s two-board examination system, a major reform under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 that aims to reduce the “high-stakes” nature of board examinations by giving students an additional opportunity to improve their scores.
Under the new two-board examination policy of CBSE, introduced from 2026 in line with NEP 2020, only students who appeared in the main board examination were eligible to take the second examination to improve their scores in as many as three subjects – science, mathematics, social science and languages. For regular students, the board takes into account the better of the two offers while preparing the final score.
Students can access their digital results and academic documents through DigiLocker, while printed marksheets and pass certificates will be issued through their respective schools.
