By IANS
New Delhi : A record 28,187 Class 10 students appearing for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams have scored over 90 percent marks this year, as the Board announced results Tuesday.
A total of 705,857 candidates appeared for the exams this year – an 8.93 percent increase over last year. Students notched up an average pass percentage of 84.44 percent – an increase of 7.28 percent as compared to 2006.
CBSE Chairman Ashok Ganguly said this year 28,187 students scored more than 90 percent marks as compared to 21,002 students last year, marking a 32 percent increase.
"What is interesting is that in this segment boys have outperformed girls. A total of 14,211 boys have scored 90 percent or above against 13,976 female students," Ganguly told IANS.
"Encouragingly, this year 2,923 candidates have scored above 95 percent and in this segment girls have retained their lead. While 1,619 female students have scored over 95 percent 1,304 boys have scored the same," he added.
The record number of students scoring over 90 percent, he said, "indicates that our students are accepting challenge and performing better."
"The 20 marks internal evaluation in mathematics and social science and restructuring of science and technology papers have helped students to achieve a better result," Ganguly said.
Interestingly, several Class 10 students scored between 93 and 100 in languages. While 664 students scored 100 out of 100 in Sanskrit, very high marks were also registered in Malayalam, Kannada and Arabic (99 out of 100); and Oriya, Tamil and Telugu (98).
Overall, Ganguly said, girls performed better than boys with an 84.72 pass percentage as compared to 84.24 percent for boys.
At 93.87 percent, Ajmer region recorded the highest overall pass percentage, followed by Chennai (93.47 percent), Panchkula (89.08 percent) and Allahabad (87.44 percent).
Delhi stood fifth in the list with a 77.18 pass percentage while Guwahati region came at the bottom with 56 percent.
Among the different categories of schools, the government-run Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas topped the examinations with a 96.41 pass percentage followed by Kendriya Vidyalayas (Central Schools) with 95.64 percent.
While 92.33 percent of students at Tibetan Schools tasted success, private independent schools scored a pass percentage of 91.81 and the government schools were at the bottom of the pool with a 70.36 pass percentage.
"The government schools may have been at the bottom of the list but in comparison to last year, 16 percent more students have qualified this year. While 54.07 percent had passed in 2006, this year 70.36 percent candidates have achieved success," Ganguly said.