By IANS,
Pune : Students from small towns scored over those from metros once again in the higher secondary examinations of the Maharashtra state education board, with two students from Ahmedpur in Marathwada’s Latur district getting the first two slots in the merit list.
The two top scorers, Kalyani Joshi (99 percent) and Hrishikesh Joshi (98 percent), have crowned the Latur division’s success in registering the highest pass percentage of 90.79 in the examination, the results of which were declared Saturday.
While the state board’s Aurangabad division, which also belongs to Maharashtra’s ‘backward’ Marathwada region, has come next to Latur with a pass percentage of 89.86 followed by Pune (89.72) and Nashik (89.41) divisions, the Nagpur division has recorded the poorest performance with a pass percentage of 81.12.
As many as 830,711 of 950,618 students who appeared for the class 12 examination passed, giving an overall pass percentage of 87.39 with Mumbai (85.33) and Amravati (87.19) divisions sliding below the average along with Nagpur.
Monika Dhok, the third topper in the state with 97.50 percent marks, is from Amravati of Maharashtra’s other ‘backward’ region, Vidarbha.
The divisional toppers are Priyanka Jain (Mumbai), Sumedh Ranade and Pavitra Shetty (Pune), Pratik Patil and Hemraj Sarda (Nashik), Madhura Mulmule (Nagpur), Prajakta Bhide and Pradyumna Naslpurkar (Kolhapur) and Sheetal Jaju and Samir Mandge (Aurangabad).
Girls have done better than boys yet again with a pass percentage of 92.05 as against 87.54.
While Gaurav Pawar of Dhule is the topper in the backward category, Nitin Patil of Nandurbar (in the same, backward Dhule district) is the topper among the physically challenged candidates.
The state education board, which did away with the practice of publishing ‘merit lists’ since six years back, has introduced the facility of re-examination this year.