State performance class 10 results

COIMBATORE: Last year three, and five perfect scores this year. The state seems to continuously setting higher standards when it comes to board exam performance. The class 10 state board results that were announced on Thursday saw five students from across the state making a clean sweep with 500 out of 500.
Merrin K Verghese of Hilton Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Old Courtallam, Tirunelveli, Pritika Gnanasekaran Golden Gates Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Kondappanaickenpatti, Salem, Harsha T of Chinmaya Vidyala Matriculation School, Srirangam, Tiruchirapalli, Yogeshver A Maruthi Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Lawspet, Puducherry and Krishaa from St Joseph of Cluny (G) Higher Secondary School, Lawspet, Puducherry were the five students who scored 500/500, and were the toppers of the state.
While five students had perfect scores, for the first time in the history board exams, 773 students jostled for the top three ranks in the state. This is almost a five times increase than the last year. In 2014, 169 students in the state were among the top three state ranks. While technically the state toppers are the five students who scored 500/500, but the Tamil Nadu state government awards the state ranks only to students who chose Tamil as their second language; making 497 as the state first rank.
A total of 41 students from the state scored 497/500, 192 candidates scored 498 and a whopping 540 students scored 497 marks. The overwhelming performance in the exams, also showed an improvement in the overall pass percentage. It increased from 90.7% in 2014 to 92.9% this year. The pass percentage of boys and girls, also improved by 2%. A total of 10.6lakh students appeared for the exam this year, out of which 5.33lakh were boys and 5.27lakh were girls.
While the number of boys and girls are almost equal in the class 10 boards, the pass percentage of girls was 5% more than that of boys. Boys showed 90% pass this year, while the girls had 95% of them succeeding in the exams. Out of the 10.6lakh candidates, almost 8lakh students passed the exams in first class.
While the state has been improving its performance and setting new benchmarks in the results every year, experts raise eyebrows over the quality of the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus. According to educational consultant J P Gandhi the state government should rethink about setting question papers and framing a new examination pattern. "If you have straight forward questions, every student is bound to get a high score. This is the reason we have one out of every 10 students scoring centum in science," said Gandhi.
"We should frame a syllabus that sets a tone for class 11 and 12. Students should be made to think, and for it to happen, a new syllabus has to be framed," said Gandhi.