KARACHI, Nov 8: With the recently-awarded grace marks, up to one per cent, to the failing candidates, the over all pass percentage of the Higher School Certificate, annual examination candidates has increased by 12.20 per cent.

In all, 79,950 candidates appeared in Science, Commerce (Regular and Private), Humanities (regular and private), Science General, Home Economics and Diploma in Physical Education, annual examinations-2003, out of which a total of 34,717 candidates were declared passed. However, with the grace marks, the number of successful candidates has reached to 44,476.

Prior to the revision, the over all pass percentage of all the faculties was calculated as 43.42, but with the addition of another 9,759 successful candidates the pass percentage has jumped to 55.62.

After revision of result, a maximum increase of 16.67 was observed in the pass percentage of DPE examination, while the lowest increase was observed in the case of pre-engineering group, ie 4.66.

The increase in other groups has been estimated as; 15.23 per cent in Humanities (Regular), 13.36 in Commerce (Regular and private), 12.44 in Humanities (Private), 11.13 in Home Economics, 9.62 in Science General and 7.94 per cent in pre-medical examination.

According to unofficial calculations, now the over all pass percentage in different group examinations stands as follows: Home Economics, 85.15 per cent; Diploma in Physical Education, 62.5; pre-medical, 61.98; Humanities (regular), 61.51; Commerce (Regular and Private), 55.59; pre-engineering, 50.03; Humanities (Private), 46.55 and Science General, 39.79 per cent.