Noida girl Raksha Gopal emerged as all-India topper in the Class XII Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination, the results of which were announced on Sunday, with a whopping 99.6 per cent, just two marks away from the perfect score.
Raksha’s performance is more significant since she is the first all India topper who makes it with Humanities stream in the recent past. She scored 100 in English (Core), 99 in History, 100 in Political Science, 100 in Economics and 99 in Economics. Her total stood at 498 out of 500. With her performance, Raksha has busted the myth that Humanities are not high scoring subject.
The national Capital registered an impressive 88.37 per cent success rate against the national average of 82 per cent and the Delhi Government schools outperformed the private ones. Delhi Government schools’ pass percentage is 88.27 per cent, while it is 79.27 per cent of the private schools, according to CBSE officials. Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia expressed happiness at Government school students’ performance.
Delhi’s pass percentage improved by over one per cent in Class XII CBSE examinations. Delhi region pass percentage is 88.37 per cent as compared to 87.01 per cent last year.
On the national level, Delhi’s ranked third after Thiruvananthapuram, which recorded highest pass percentage of 95.62 per cent, followed by Chennai which registered 92.60 per cent success rate.
The all-India second and third toppers are from Chandigarh — Bhumi Sawant, a science student, scored 99.4% marks to emerge as the all-India second topper and Mannat luthra and Aditya Jain jointly bagged the third rank. Both Jain and luthra, commerce students of Bhavan Vidyalaya in Chandigarh, scored 99.2 per cent marks.
like in previous years, girls outshine boys this year too. The pass percentage for girls stood at 87.5 per cent while that for boys was 78 per cent.
Nearly 11 lakh students appeared in the Class 12 examinations this year, of which 6.4 lakh were boys and 4.6 lakh girls. The examinations were held between March 9 and April 29.
The all India pass percentage has gone down from 83.05 per cent last year to 82 per cent this year, a senior CBSE official said. A total of 2,497 candidates under disabilities also registered for the exam this year.
The Board announced the results of all its 10 regions simultaneously. The Delhi region has the highest number of candidates (2,58,321), followed by Panchkula with 1,84,557 and Ajmer with 1,31,449 candidates.
A total of 10,98,891 candidates from 10,678 schools appeared for the Class XII boards this year, which is a 2.82% point increase from last year, according to CBSE official. The exams were conducted from March 9 to April 29. The official also informed that the all India pass percentage has gone down from 83.05% to 82% this year
“My aim was not to get the top marks but to do well. My strategy was to fully focus on my subjects. My school helped a lot along with all teachers. We were made to take many mock tests. They cleared all my doubts,” said Raksha. When asked about her career goals, the topper said, “I want to do political science honours. Once I am in college, I will decide what to do further.”
All India second topper Bhumi’s parents said they were extremely happy because their daughter has made entire Haryana proud.
“Girls have proved they can outperform boys. I am proud of Bhumi. She has made entire Haryana and her country proud,” said her father.
Aditya Jain, who lives in Panchkula, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is his role model.
“Shri Modi rose to this position from a humble background proving that anything is possible with hard work, grit and determination,” he said. He wants to join the civil services and serve my country, he added.
Mannat luthra said she never thought she would be among the toppers. “But I always felt good to top school examinations. Honestly speaking, I never liked anyone scoring better than me...I will say consistent hard work has paid off for me,” Mannat said. Mannat’s mother said her daughter always topped in her class right from nursery class.
“I am really happy with her achievement,” her father said. He also said, “A year before, I advised her to refrain from using WhatsApp and social media. That, together with hard work she has put in has helped”
Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar said, “I want to congratulate all the students who scored well… success gives you strength and confidence. Also congrats to students who have succeeded in CBSE and other board exams.”
In a video message to students, the Minister advised students who could not perform well that “the defeat is not final unless we keep trying”.
The Minister also said he called up first four toppers Raksha Gopal, Bhumi Sawant De, Mannat luthra and Aditya Jain and congratulated them for their performance.
Meanwhile the CBSE has also started a helpline with toll free number 18000118004 for counselling post-Class XII board results. “65 counsellors will talk to students and parents on the helpline number between 8 am and 10 pm,” the official said.
The results are available on cbse.nic.in. The CBSE is hosting its result on the internet and with technical support of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Government of India.