By Prashant K. Nanda
IANS
New Delhi : A mammoth 5,251 Class 10 students have scored 100 out of 100 in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examinations announced Tuesday, "conquering" the apparently fearsome subject.
"Mathematics is no more a subject to fear. Students are now ten times brilliant than what they were a decade ago or so. This year's results show that mathematics can be conquered convincingly," CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly said.
"This year, a whopping 5,251 candidates scored 100 out of 100 in mathematics and interestingly, boys have done far better than girls (3,047 boys against 2,204 girls)," Ganguly told IANS.
A total of 705,857 candidates appeared for the Class 10 examinations – an 8.93 percent increase over the last year. Students notched up an average pass percentage of 84.44 percent – an increase of 7.28 percent as compared to 2006.
Underlining the possible reason for better scores in mathematics, Ganguly said the 20 marks internal evaluation in the subject came handy.
Among the six regions, a record 1,406 students from Allahabad scored 100 out of 100 in the subject followed by Chandigarh (1,307), Chennai (1,206), Delhi (658), Ajmer (661) and Guwahati (13).
In the Class 12 results declared last week, 1,146 students had scored 100 out of 100 in mathematics.
However, the chairman said mathematics is not the only subject in which students are scoring exceedingly well, saying "1,232 students have scored 100 out of 100 in social science, 664 in Sanskrit, 250 in science and technology and 212 in introductory IT." He added that four students scored full marks in English as well.
Besides, two students scored 100 out 100 in Hindi while seven scored the same in German. Eight students notched up full marks in French as well.