Toppers from smaller towns make a mark on Std. XII science merit list

The Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) declared the results of the Class XII science stream on Thursday, bringing to an end the anxiety of more than 80,000 students who had appeared for the exams.

Eighteen students from across the state made it to the top-10 merit list. Thirteen of them have come from Kheda, Palanpur, Junagadh, Gondal and Rajkot, displacing the traditional merit list strongholds of Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat.

“It is the emergence of a new India within the ‘shining India’. Small town students are aspiring big and it is showing in the results. Ahmedabad and Vadodara are not the only centres to produce toppers,” said GSHSEB chairman R K Pathak.

The pass percentage stood at 75.82, down eight percent from last year.

Devanshi Shah, a student of Ahmedabad’s Sheth C N Vidyalaya stood first in the overall merit list. She scored a total of 481 marks out of 500 and secured a whopping 96.20 per cent in the exams.

Namely, four students are tied for the top position in the merit list of students drawn on the basis of performance in the science subjects. Jayshil Parekh and Jaydeep Fadadu from Bhavnagar, Shreya Butalia from Ahmedabad, and Dhruv Vaishnav from Rajkot are all tied at the top with 98.67 per cent each. Devanshi, the overall state topper, is the fifth in this list.

Chandresh Vadodariya from the P P Savani Vidya Bhawan School, Surat and Rahul Shethia from Bright Day School, Surat were tied for the second spot in the overall merit list with 95.60 per cent each.

Dhara Sondarva from G K Dholaiya High School, Rajkot stood third in the state with 95.20 per cent.

Gujarati remained the preferred medium of writing the examination with 67,916 of the 80749 students opting for it.

Among the districts, Amreli came first with more than 92 per cent of its students passing the exam. Navsari recorded a pass percentage of 89. Ahmedabad, Panchmahals, Banasknatha, Mehsana, Surendranagar and Patan districts have all recorded pass percentage in excess of 80. In Vadodara the pass percentage was a little above 70. Kheda and Jamnagar occupy the bottom of the rung with pass percentages of 53.4 and 54.8 respectively.

Ahmedabad (City) with 336 students leads the list of number of students in the top 1500 in the state.

Pathak said, “I am more than satisfied with the results so far. The total number of students to pass the exams has increased by more than 20,000 from last year. This is a very encouraging sign.” The results for the commerce and the general stream are expected to be declared sometime in the last week of May.

Result TRIVIA

The number of students appearing for the science stream has increased by more than 20,000 from the 58,314 compared to last year.

The pass percentage has declined from 83.54 in 2007 to 75.85.

Last year the merit list was a crowded one with 42 students tied for the various top ten slots. This year only 26 students share the top-10 merit number across the state.

The number of schools reporting 100 per cent results has also come down to 33 from 81 last year.

Amreli tops the district wise performance list with 92.73 pass percentage. Kheda is at bottom of the list

Not a single student from any of the 11 tribal districts have figured in the state toppers list

The only student from one of the 11 tribal districts to figure in the state merit list is a non tribal. Mohammed Saifee Dohadwala from St Stephen's High School, Dahod has made it to the Science Subject Top 10 list at the sixth spot.

There are five girls in the merit list of 18 students, out of a total of 80169 candidates who appeared. Of these, 26,001 were girls.

The pass percentage among girls stood slightly higher at 78.82 per cent. For the boys it is 74.43 per cent.

Over 14,000 students were placed in the first class with distinction category.

Of the 154 disabled candidates, 125 cleared the exam, a pass percentage of 81.17. Besides, all the three blind candidates were successful. 12 of the 13 deaf and dumb students also passed

Students were given the option of answering the exams in English, Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Sindhi or Urdu mediums.

26 took the exam in Urdu, only 12 passed. At 46.15, it is the lowest pass percentage among all mediums.