Chennai may not have made it to the top five districts in terms of ranking, but it not only cornered 28 of the whopping 465 official three State ranks in the SSLC class X examinations, but also had a student scoring a centum in all the subjects.
It was not just private schools, but also government schools which came out with a strong showing this year. Director of School Education Rameshwara Murugan said that 887 government schools in the State had got 100 per cent results as compared to 482 last year. “The pass percentage has also increased from 81 per cent to 85 per cent. We held region-wise meetings, oriented teachers and gave additional attention to students who were finding it difficult to cope up,” he said.
Chennai, however, slipped from the sixth position to the tenth this year. Of the 55,949 students who appeared from 589 schools, 93.42 per cent students passed.
Continuing with last year’s trend, the third year since Samacheer Kalvi was introduced, it was raining State ranks and centums, and academicians warned that it is increasingly becoming crowded at the top. However, they were divided on the impact of the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus.
This year, while the number of centums in mathematics went down from 29,905 in 2013 to 18,682 in 2014, the number in Science rose steeply from 38,154 in 2013 to 69,560 this year. The centums in Social Science also increased from 19,680 to 26,554 this year.
What worried many was students securing a centum in English. A Principal of a matriculation school, who is also an English teacher, cautioned against granting students a centum in English. This year, as many as 677 students scored full marks in English in the State. “There is always scope for improvement, and allowing a student to score a centum is limiting. We could not have imagined it a few years back,” she said.
While a vice-principal of a matriculation school said that objective-type questions help students score better, P. Vishnucharan, correspondent, Shree Niketan Matriculation School, in whose school 121 students secured above 90 per cent, said that such results will lead to parents having unrealistic expectations.
S.S. Rajagopalan, educationist said that in the current examination pattern rote memory is tested over understanding of the subject. “It has got nothing to do with the syllabus. Students can be trained to face any syllabus. We must look at whether learning is taking place in the classroom,” he said.
Prince Gajendra Babu, general secretary, State Platform for Common Schooling System agreed. He said that the syllabus was only a tool, and not the end in itself. “There has been an unprecedented number of centums, and scoring full marks in language is unimaginable. But, this is not because the syllabus has been diluted,” he said, adding that we should not get carried away by the centums.
Rita John, principal, SBOA Matriculation said that they had secured 185 centums and more than 50 per cent of their students scored over 90 per cent and 90 per cent scored over 75 per cent. She attributed it to a change in the trend of learning and said that standards in subjects like Mathematics was good in the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus.
A high number of students edging upwards would also impact the class XI admissions in schools, some said.
