Hindi teacher for English, science taught via YouTube: In Haryana schools where almost nobody cleared boards

In these Haryana schools grappling with a severe teacher crunch, the writing was already on the wall when class XII exams came.While their peers did the customary whoop, jump in the air and celebratory group hug — hallmarks of result season — they retreated into anonymity as class 12 board scores were published last month; away from probing questions, the scorn of family members, inquest of neighbours, and commiserations of friends who had done better.

At 18 schools, all students who took the Haryana class XII board exams this year failed. At 82 more, the pass percentage was below 35, an outcome anomalous with the 85.7 overall, which was an improvement from 85.3 in 2024 and 81.6 in 2023.

No forensic investigation is needed to explain their poor showing. In one school, for example, the Hindi teacher was also taking the English class. At another, science lessons came from YouTube channels, supervised by a teacher from the humanities section. Students, principals and parents TOI spoke to also referred to strict measures against cheating that were taken this time as a factor that had “spooked” some of them.The risk many of the failed students run is dropping out of the education system. Girls resisting pressure from families to get married fear they will no longer be able to do so. And for boys under pressure to add to the family income, it’s the inevitable path into low-paying informal jobs.

“In such circumstances, the community questions the value of further schooling, with remarks like, ‘will he or she become a lawyer, or DC?’. This leads to parents not re-admitting their children after they fail,” says Kusum Malik, science teacher at a govt school, underlining the need to reach out to students and their families and rebuild confidence through special classes.23 appeared, 22 failedAt Govt Girls Senior Secondary School in Nuh’s Shikrawa, only one student from the whole batch had a pass score in all subjects.

“A great shame” is how sarpanch Azhar Shikrawa described the feeling, pointing out that “this village has given our justice system two judges and some police officers”.In principal Amar Singh Beniwal’s practical analysis, this was a result foretold. The school is without dedicated teachers for history and political science and has had severe problems in the science stream. Last year, of the six girls who had taken science, three failed and three received a compartment. The school introduced the science stream three years ago, but has been struggling to find teachers. At present, says Beniwal, it has teachers for physics and chemistry, but not biology. And yet, students did relatively better in biology — which was taught by the chemistry teacher — than in chemistry itself, confounding the principal.Isha, who failed in chemistry, blamed it on a “lack of revision”. Nasreen said English questions “were out of syllabus” and has made stoic peace with the result, calling it “ kismat ki baat (a matter of fate)”.

Farzana referred to a sudden drop in performance after class 11 “as the medium of teaching changed to English from Hindi”. Farzana’s father had a different take — he felt the results were affected by “strict checking and presence of exter0 nal observers during the exams, which had made the children nervous”.Beniwal told TOI , “Absence of leadership in the past caused teachers to become complacent. The core issue is staff shortage.

Our teachers are overburdened and have to teach subjects beyond their expertise. It’s true that many students are transitioning from Hindi medium. This year, we also implemented stricter measures to prevent cheating.”13 appeared, all failedSince Govt Senior Secondary School in Autha, also in Nuh, started its higher secondary section in 2022, very few have cleared the boards. This year, none did. The school hasn’t had a specialist English teacher since 2022.

It’s the Hindi teacher who stands in. Political science has just one teacher for junior and senior classes. There were, however, two Sanskrit teachers till this Feb.Azhar, who didn’t clear his boards this year, says there was an all-round crisis of teachers. “The physical education teacher sometimes came and took science class. The principal, who has been at the school for around a year-and-a-half, taught us history and political science.

But the principal also has other things to do,” he said.Apparently, the exams were also marred by confusion. One student said the English paper started 60-90 minutes late in some rooms at the exam centre. Another said there was confusion about allotment of rooms.Shri Krishan, the school’s principal, said, “The primary cause of poor performance is the lack of specialised subject teachers. Our students rely entirely on the school for learning; if they don’t receive proper guidance here, they don’t study at all.”105 appeared, 95 failedThe All Boys Senior Secondary School in Nuh’s Punhana did not have teachers for chemistry, physics and biology, its principal Abdul Nafe told TOI . “A teacher for chemistry joined in Nov, but the batch had little time left for preparations,” he says, adding that science teachers have not been available for two years. It did not, therefore, come as a surprise that just three students had pass marks in physics.“Since we didn’t have subject teachers, we tried to learn from material on the web.

Teachers in the classroom would play YouTube videos for us. We could understand the material to some extent, but it was difficult to clear doubts in this manner,” a student said.Marks in humanities subjects were better, even though geography and home science had no teachers. “But the overall result was affected by students failing in specific subjects despite passing others (like passing history but failing in Hindi or political science),” says Nafe, adding that many students came to class 11 with very weak foundational knowledge, struggling even with basic reading and writing (the school identified 28 class 9 students who cannot write Hindi or English).25 appeared, 21 failedK Ramniwas minces no words. “We are very ashamed of the result,” says the principal of Govt Senior Secondary School in Khanda, Sonepat. The school had no shortage of teachers. “It’s even more shameful that despite having all teachers available in our school, only four students passed,” says Ramniwas, identifying poor attendance as the main culprit. Most of the students in this rural school belong to farming families and economically weak sections, and so have to “regularly engage in work with their family to earn some extra money”, according to the principal.The results are a reality check for the school, which needs a course correction in political science and history, two subjects in which most of the current batch failed. “The previous years were fine. This time, results were affected by these two subjects,” says Ramniwas. This session, the school will have a bigger batch in class 12 (34 students).15 appeared, 10 failedGovt Senior Secondary School at Kaurali in Faridabad has not had a full-time principal since Suparna Trikha retired on Aug 31 last year.

Neither does it have teachers for social sciences, science, Hindi, English and Sanskrit. It’s, therefore, somewhat a matter of surprise that five from the batch of 15 that appeared in the boards this year actually cleared it and will move to college.“How can students be expected to study when there are no teachers for even the main subjects? The condition of govt schools must be improved. Students are suffering,” says Ashok, the sarpanch of Kaurali. An officer at the education directorate in Panchkula, told TOI , “Out of the 18 schools where all students failed, only three are govt schools. In Nuh, the poor performance of schools is largely due to a shortage of teachers. The situation is expected to improve following a teacher transfer drive, which aims to address this issue.”Kusum Malik says the ‘class readiness programme’ in the months of April and May needs to be strengthened with a focus on improving basic skills in Hindi, English and maths. “To address social factors, parent-teacher meetings need to be held regularly. Teachers can explain the benefits of education and use success stories from the community as role models to inspire them,” she says.