CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has recorded a pass percentage of 99.72 in the CBSE Class 10 Board Exams. However, only one student from the state made it to the top 100.
According to a CBSE release, 52,913 students from the State appeared for the Class 10 Exams this year. B Kaviya Varshini, a student of Vidhya Niketan Public School in Coimbatore, was the sole TN student in the top 100. She scored 497 and was among the 59 who shared the third rank. Thirteen students scored 499 and shared the first rank while 25 students scored 498 marks and shared the second rank.
Chennai region, which includes TN, AP, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Andaman & Nicobar, Daman & Diu and Puducherry, had the second highest pass percentage of 99. Thiruvananthapuram region had the highest pass percentage of 99.85.
While CBSE officials refused to comment on the glaring disproportionality of high pass percentage but low representation in the top 100, educationalists claimed that this could be due to the migration of students from State Board schools to CBSE schools. “CBSE schools are filled with students who migrated from State Board schools over the last few years since NEET became compulsory. These students will be able to pass but are yet to acquire the skills required to top CBSE exams,” said Raji Ramakrishnan, former administrative head of the Alpha group of schools in Tiruchy, explaining that the migration was initially sparked by the scrapping of the matriculation board.
She claimed that this is only a “temporary” phenomenon and students will eventually adapt to the CBSE system and the topper percentage would reflect the high pass percentage in the State in the coming years.
This disproportionality was seen across the Chennai region which had only 10 candidates in the top 100 list.
Interestingly, close to 70 of the top 100 scorers are from Panchkula and Dehradun regions, which have pass percentages of 93.72 and 89.04 respectively. Educationalist Ayesha Natarajan expressed concerns over this trend of most toppers being from North India, suggesting there could be a bias at play.