The post of headmaster in almost 67 government schools in the Union Territory has been lying vacant due to a court case, said G. Ragesh Chandra, Education Secretary, citing this as one of the main reasons for the marginal drop in the pass percentage for the State Board Class X (SSLC) examination this year. The results were announced by Chief Minister N. Rangasamy on Friday.
A total of 91.64 per cent of students in Puducherry and Karaikal region who took the examination passed, showing a drop of 2.79 per cent compared to last year (93.8 per cent). A total of 18,419 students had taken the examination, of which 16,879 students have passed.
Students in the Union Territory did particularly well in Science, with 1,352 students scoring full marks compared to 697 students who achieved the feat last year. There were however fewer centum scorers in Maths, Social science and English.
Students scoring centum in Maths dropped to 543 this year from 906 students the previous year. While 934 students scored centum in Social Science last year, only 532 scored centum this year. A drop was also seen in English, where only 3 students scored centum compared to 14 last year.
The Education Secretary sought to link the drop to the performance of government schools. The pass percentage in government schools has been 84.67 per cent, compared to 90.26 per cent last year. Girls (93.90 per cent pass percentage) outshone boys (89.40 per cent pass percentage) yet again this year.
The number of schools which scored a 100 per cent pass percentage remained the same at 124 compared to last year, with some schools like Sri Saibaba English High School improving from 63.64 per cent and Mother English High School improving from 71.43 per cent pass percentage last year to 100 per cent this year.
