Girls lead the victory parade, again

Anahita Mukherji & Hemali Chhapia | TNN

Mumbai: The results that trickled in from the SSC scores were crystal clear — girls were number one, yet again, and in every category. Not only did girls top in every section — state, city, night school, backward or handicapped category— they also had a higher pass percentage compared to boys, like every other year in both HSC and SSC.

Latur’s Shilpa Hiremath was numero uno, with an eye-popping 98.61%, while Thane’s Sonali Chavan topped the Mumbai division with a score of 96.46%. Mumbai’s night school topper, Sonal Singh, who scored 84.15%, was also the state topper in the category. Again, of the six students in the top three, five were girls. Another five students made it to the merit list for the backward-class category, of which four were girls.

Boys had a pass percentage of 78.66% this year, while girls were way ahead with a pass percentage of 82.10%.

Of the divisions, Latur, which missed the state topper’s position to Kolhapur last year and to Aurangabad in 2007, reclaimed the impressive position it held in 2006, and registered a pass percentage of 81.40%, making it fourth in the state.

Vijaysheela Sardesai, chairperson of the state board said the performance of repeaters across the state had improved, boosting Maharashtra’s success rate.

This year, Mumbai had the lowest number of cheating cases across the state, while Nagpur had the highest. This, despite the fact that there was a five-fold increase in the number of copying cases detected in Mumbai this year. “For the first time, we had warned supervisors that they, too, would be penalised for students found cheating at their centres,’’ said Basanti Roy, secretary of the Mumbai division of the board. Moreover, the results of a number of students were withheld this year because they could not furnish the necessary documents for the exam.

In addition to conducting exams, for the first time the SSC board has also launched its own 21-point programme for stress free examinations. Pointers for parents, students, principals, teachers and the school management on how to lower stress levels have been put up at 3,500 schools across Mumbai, Thane and Raigad.

WINNERS ALL: Mumbai topper Sonali Chavan (centre) flanked by Shefali Mhadadalkar (left) and Tejal Pradhan, second and third in the city respectively