It’s girls all the way. The Class XII result of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), announced on Monday, witnessed the ‘fair sex’ completely outnumbering their male counterparts by bagging nine positions out of top ten.
The girls have decimated the boys to the fringes by grabbing top nine positions besides dominating 75 per cent merit list.
All the top three positions were taken by the girls with Darshveer Kaur of RS Model School, ludhiana, and Saema Rashid of Khalsa Senior Secondary School, Ropar, sharing the top position with both securing 100 per cent marks.
Excited over the unique plus-two result, the State Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema said that it was gratifying that the education department’s focus on improving education level of girl students was paying rich dividends as girls by their commitment and sheer hard work have begun their unique march towards gender equality in the State.
Out of total 366 merit holders, 268 positions were snatched by the girl students. Even in the sports category in the merit list, the girl power was prominently visible with 21 girls out of 29 sports merit holders leaving only eight positions for boys.
Cheema has congratulated the toppers of Class XII and also the efforts and pains taken by teachers of Government schools, due to whose efforts the students have scored well.
“Sarika of Humanities stream from BCM Senior Secondary School at Jamalpur in ludhiana stood second by securing 99.78 per cent marks, Kajol Tandon of Science stream from RS Model School, ludhiana, bagged the third position by securing 99.56 per cent marks,” informed PSEB chairperson Tejinder Kaur Dhaliwal while declaring the result.
ludhiana district once again topped the list of meritorious students, with 199 students from here making it to the merit list.
PSEB had conducted the senior secondary annual exams in March this year, in which 3.40 lakh students had appeared. Of them, 3.05 lakh students were regular while the remaining had appeared as private candidates under Open School programme.
Cheema announced that the first three position holders would be specially honoured. “By bagging first three positions, the girl students have once again proved their mettle,” he said.
With overall pass percentage of 76.24 per cent, 2,40,199 of the total 3,04,644 regular students and 18,881 of the total 35,174 private students cleared the Class XII exams.
The pass percentage of Government schools is 77.99 per cent, while the results of affiliated and Adarsh Schools are 75.29 per cent, results of Associated schools are 72.24 per cent and the results of Aided schools are 68.34 per cent.
Punjab Government is committed for providing quality education in Government schools and Monday’s results are an example of it, he said.
Cheema has also congratulated PSEB Tejinder Kaur Dhaliwal, the staff of PSEB, and teachers involved in checking of examination papers for timely declaration of result. “It is for the first time that the checking has been done through table marking,” he said.
It is for the first time that PSEB had declared its senior secondary exam result before the CBSE and ICSE results, she said.