It was a good year to have been a tenth grader. Not only have more students passed the Class X exams than ever before (9.35 lakh), the pass percentage has shot up by three per cent, making it an admirable 89%.
Though Chennai has 591 schools — the highest in the State — the metropolis hasn’t been able to achieve the best pass percentage in Tamil Nadu, remaining at pretty much the same sixth spot it has retained over the years.
Despite the 94.61% pass rate that the city’s students have notched up, Kanyakumari’s best brains have managed a 97.29% pass rate, handing them the top spot.
Incidentally, the city also recorded a sharp increase in the number of ‘first class’ students. “City students have done well this year as most of them have scored above 60 per cent,” said Kaviya Lakshmi S, a biology teacher at a school in Santhome. “Our students have put the minds of the ninth graders at ease as they were a little afraid of entering the tenth standard and facing their first board exam,” she added. Centums were scored by the bucket by kids in the city, while there were several 90+ scores to make a whole lot of parents proud. Though there was only a smattering of toppers from Chennai, schools like Velammal MHSS and Agarwal Vidyalaya did themselves proud with a consistent performance.
Incidentally, Chennai’s neighbours — Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur (who also have 1,137 schools between them) — were much lower down the pecking order as their pass percentages only fetched them the 23rd and 24th spots.