Punjab School Exam Trends....Ludhiana students on top..Govt and aided schools do better than private schools...

Girls top PSEB Class XII exams
Bag 19 of top 20 positions; overall pass percentage of 78.97% better than last year’s 72.31%
Akash Ghai
Tribune News Service

Mohali, May 18
Girls outshone boys in the humanities and commerce streams while the science group witnessed a boy grabbing the top slot in the Class XII Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) examination, the results of which were declared today. Interestingly, 19 girls have made it to the top-20 league of the overall merit list of all streams.

Scoring 96.89 per cent each, Mehak of BCM Senior Secondary School, Ludhiana, and Maninder Kaur of GTB Khalsa Senior Secondary School, Malout (Muktsar), shared the top position in the overall merit list. Both were from the humanities group.

In the science stream, Davinder Pal Singh (95.78 per cent) of DC Collegiate Senior Secondary School, Jalandhar City, secured the top position. He remained at the fifth position in the overall merit list.

In the commerce group, Tammana Sharma of Dashmesh Senior Secondary School, Ludhiana, grabbed the top slot with 94.67 per cent marks. She remained 10th in the overall merit list.

The second and third slots in all the three streams have also gone to girls.

While Charanpreet Kaur (96.44 per cent) and Jyoti Bansal (96.22 per cent), both students of Sanmati Vimal Jain Senior Secondary Public School, Jagroan (Ludhiana district), won the second spot and third spots in the overall merit list as well as the humanities group, Prabhjot Kaur Mangat (95.56 per cent) of Guru Nanak Public Senior Secondary School, Khattmanpur in Fatehgarh Sahib and Nishant (95.33 per cent) of Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Jalandhar, remained second and third in the science group.

In commerce, Rajwinder Kaur of Teja Singh Sutantar Memorial Senior Secondary School, Ludhiana, and Gurpreet Kaur of Shri Harikrishan Sahib Public Senior Secondary School, Ludhiana, secured the second and third positions.

The overall pass percentage of the girls is 87 per cent as compared to 72.72 per cent of the boys. A total of 3,29,805 students appeared in the examinations, of whom 2,60,456 have passed with an overall percentage of 78.97 per cent.

While declaring the results, Education Minister Sikandar Singh Maluka emphasised that there still was a lot of scope for improvement. "Our overall pass percentage this year (78.97 per cent) is better than last year's 72.31 per cent. We will strive towards improving our score," said Maluka.

However, he expressed happiness over students of rural areas and government schools showing better results than that the previous years.

"This year, the overall pass percentage of rural students is 78 per cent, which is slightly lesser than that of urban students (79.66 per cent)," said Maluka. He said the pass percentage stood quite low at 70.28 per cent in 2011. He also said students could apply for rechecking within 10 days.

Ludhiana all the way

With 136 students in the overall merit list, Ludhiana district has fared the best of them all. In humanities, all the top four slots (a Muktsar girl also shared the top position with a Ludhiana girl) have been grabbed by Ludhiana girls. Similar is the case in the commerce stream where all the top four positions have gone to Ludhiana girls. Of the top 25 students in the overall merit list, 15 are from Ludhiana district.

Private schools left behind

The government and aided schools have performed better than private schools. The pass percentage of government and aided schools is 82.22% as compared to 76.21% of private schools.