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Odisha Class 10 Stats: 95.33% Pass Rate, 100% Success in Special Schools, and Absenteeism Trends

05 May 2026, 11:39 by Vinay Kakkad · KalingaTV

Odisha’s latest Class 10 Board exam results give a mixed snapshot of where education stands in the state. On one side, it’s great news—pass rates are the highest they’ve ever been. But there’s growing worry because more students are skipping the exams.

The Board of Secondary Education (BSE) recently shared that the 2026 High School Certificate (HSC) exams had a pass rate of 95.33%. Around 5.44 lakh students signed up, and 5.36 lakh actually sat for the exams. Of those, 5,19,251 passed. Girls continued their lead over boys, as 2,63,152 girls passed compared to 2,56,099 boys. In terms of top marks, 2,456 students earned an A1 grade, and 15,681 picked up an A2.

A standout highlight of this year’s results is the remarkable success of students with special needs. In Ganjam district, special schools for the blind and hearing-impaired achieved a 100% pass rate. The Red Cross School for the Blind saw all 12 of its visually-impaired students pass, and all 13 students at the Helen Keller Red Cross School for the Deaf cleared the exams as well. The Red Cross School for the Blind has actually managed a 100% pass record for 43 years in a row. These kids prepared with Braille textbooks and used junior “helper-writers” who wrote down their answers during the exam.

Still, the numbers hide a worrying trend. The state government’s concerned because absenteeism keeps getting worse. This year, 8,364 students filled out forms to take the exams but just didn’t show up. If you look back over the last two years, more than 16,000 students have skipped the board exams. Keonjhar (752) and Mayurbhanj (750) districts had the most students missing. Officials and educators say issues like families moving for work, poverty, child marriage, and kids being scared of exams (thanks to poor learning in the classroom) are all reasons why so many don’t appear.

Looking across the districts, Gajapati came out on top with the highest pass rate at 99.31%. Keonjhar landed at the bottom with 94.35%. For students who didn’t make the cut, the government is opening up supplementary exam registration from May 8 to May 18, with the tests happening in July. The School and Mass Education Department is also running a survey to find students who dropped out, hoping to convince them to come back either through these supplementary exams or through the Odisha State Open School Certificate (SOSC) program. This year, the pass rate in the SOSC program was 59.82%.