State sees highest pass percentage in a decade

The SSC 2014 results were announced yesterday, and while many students were left dejected as their results were withheld, others had plenty of reasons to celebrate, with the overall passing percentage of the state touching its highest figure in a decade.

While the overall passing percentage of Maharashtra stood at 81.75, Mumbai division's figure was 83.05%. School principals pointed that, after a long time, even the repeater students have done well this year, contributing to the state's overall performance.

Tough admissions
"Admissions to junior college will be difficult this time, because students from all boards have scored very well and the number of 90% scorers has gone up," said the principal of a Santacruz school.

This year, 2.98% students in the state have scored above 90%, whereas in Mumbai, 3.76% of students did so. Once again, girls outshone boys in Mumbai as well as the state. The passing percentage for girls was 86.55, compared to 80.10 for boys in Mumbai, and in the state, it was 85.75 for girls and 78.59 for boys.

Some flaws
The entire batch of SSC students failed in 105 schools in the state. State education minister Rajendra Darda, however, told mid-day that the number is less compared to previous years.

"In March 2011, we had identified schools which have a pass percentage of less than 30, and got good schools in the neighbourhood to help them. This led to an improvement in their performance.

We are now focusing on 359 schools who have seen a pass percentage of less than 40% this year," said Darda. In Mumbai, while 373 schools scored cent-percent result, there were no schools with zero per cent passing. Darda added that cases of malpractice also came down this year.

(Figures mentioned in this report have been arrived at taking both fresher and repeater students into account)

Inputs by Dimple Bhavsar, Abhishek Dandekar and Kartikeya Jain