CHENNAI: Dressed in her maroon salwar kameez uniform with the duppata neatly pinned up, corporation schools’ first ranker, P Swapna calmly took on all questions tossed at her. Even though she said her teachers had more faith in her than herself, Swapna looked confident of achieving bigger targets than her 1166 marks in Plus Two board exams. A student of the Girls Secondary High School, Korrukupet, Swapna, the daughter of a fisherman, had overcome the absence of financial support from her family to reach the top. “Since there was a ban on fishing, my father went without a job for quite sometime and we had to suffer,” said Swapna.
When Swapna kept was asked if she put in any special effort to ace the exam, she said it was an early morning and late night study routine. However, when she was repeatedly asked the question, she just laughed and said, “I didn’t do any more than others did. I tried to study as much as I could and it worked out.”
91.9% girl students pass exam
While girls students of corporation schools notched a 91 per cent pass this year in Plus Two, the boys trailed with 78 per cent pass. According to the Education Department, 5,859 corporation school students took this year’s exam and 5,051 students passed, which was 86.2 per cent overall. Three schools registered centum success this year: Chennai Higher Secondary school, Koyembedu, Lloyds Road and Subbarayan Street.