Unprecedented 1.65 lakh CBSE students score CGPA 10

Nagpur: It’s getting extremely crowded at the top for CBSE Std X students. An unprecedented 1.65 lakh students scored 10 CGPA (cumulative grade point average) this year, up from 94,474 in 2015. This shockingly high number of students in the 10 CGPA club comprise 11% of the total students appearing for the exam. CGPA 10 is the highest score a student can get in the CBSE exam and it is awarded to students who score between approximately 95%-100% marks.As per the CBSE report, total 14.91 lakh students had registered for the exam.
The burgeoning 10 CGPA club stands out even more when it’s compared with the two immediately preceding CGPA bands (9.8 and 9.6). On an average only about 3.6% of all students managed to land in these two preceding CGPA bands. In the last 12 months, CBSE has somehow managed to find about 70,000 more students who can score 95% and above.
So what is it about CBSE that’s throwing up 10 CGPAs literally by the dozen? A school principal from Nagpur said “People should not interpret it in such a way that there’s something fishy about the way schools are marking their students. May be the syllabus is not challenging enough or may be the private publisher books are making it easier to understand the concept. One could even say that e-learning is helping students as well.”
The reason for this huge jump in CBSE high scorers can only be speculated, since as of now there’s no specific data. A school owner said that majority of the marks a student gets are under their control, but that does not mean it’s being marked up. The school trustee said, “You can’t make a 7 CGPA student jump to 10 CGPA, these are all conspiracy theories by other boards. There is a difference between the conventional teaching pattern at state board and our Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) scheme, so it is but natural that the outcome will be different.”
Though CBSE officially declares only CGPA, or grades, schools in Maharashtra get access to marks scored by their students. This is done to facilitate their admissions in state board junior colleges where only marks/percentages are considered.
In Nagpur, there was quite a bit of jostling for the top three positions though Narayana Vidyalayam’s (NVS) Shreyas Gadge held on to the pole position comfortably with an impressive 99.6%. Close on his heels at the second spot were Centre Point School’s (Katol Road) Amisha Kelkar and St. Xaviers’ Shubhankar Banerjee with 99.4% each. The third spot saw NVS completely taking over with three of its students Hitesh Kandala, Shivam Choubey and Trusha Sakharkar scoring 99.2% each. Even the entry point to this club, at 99%, saw three students squeezing in for a foothold. Verdant Tambi (Jain International), Mrunmayee Athavale (School of Scholars Wanadongri) and Saurabh Khandelwal (Modern Koradi) managed each scored 99% to claim the fourth spot.