New Delhi, May 24: As many as 93.45 per cent of students who took the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 12 exam in Gulf countries have passed - way above the total pass percentage this year.

In the 53 schools in the region, 5,807 students had appeared for the examination at 34 centres, of which 5,483 students passed the examination.

"Gulf countries are of immense importance to us and we are quite happy with the result. The total pass percentage is 93.45 percent in the region - much above the total pass out rate of 79.55 per cent," Pavnesh Kumar, CBSE controller of examination, told IANS.

As many as 95.6 per cent of girls passed the exam in the Gulf as against 91.42 per cent of boys. While 82 students failed the examination, 242 students will sit for the compartmental examination to be held in two months' time.

Muscat, Dubai, Bahrain, Tehran, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are some of the places where the examination was held. Kumar said in Gulf countries, the highest score was 97.2 percent. As many as 273 students had scored more than 90 percent marks in the region.

"Like any other school under CBSE, Gulf schools have also done well and the there is an increase of over one percent in the pass out rate in that region," said CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly.

"The cool off time introduced by the board and restructuring of several subjects like physics, chemistry, biology, business studies has really yielded results," Ganguly said.

"We are happy over the result, more so because of the acceptance of new strategies by students," he said.

A total of 454,480 students in over 8,000 schools, including 190,759 girls, had appeared in the exams at 2,240 centres in India and abroad.

In 2006, CBSE noted a slight increase of 1.75 percent in the overall pass percentage. While 84.41 percent of girls (over all) passed in the exams, the figure for boys stood at 75.93 percent.

CBSE officials said the Class 10 examination results would be declared on May 27.