Live up to the name

For the second successive year, “elite students,” government school students with poor family background and groomed by the district administration to help them score good marks, fared well with 26 of the 30 students scoring more than 1,000 out of 1,200 marks in the Plus Two examinations.

With a belief that these students, who had scored high marks in Class X examinations, fighting many odds in government schools, could come out with flying colours if they were given special coaching, Collector K. Nanthakumar had initiated the project, a residential type of school for the students two years ago, by appointing special teachers to coach them.

In all, 30 students — 24 girls and six boys — were given special coaching and N. Thangavel, a girl whose father is an illiterate and herding goats at Appanur in Kadaladi block, has emerged the topper, scoring 1,120. “I owe my performance to the special coaching and I thank the Collector,” she says.

She told about the high marks she has scored to her parents, but they do not know the significance or importance, she says. Her elder brother is a Class IV dropout and her parents want her to pursue her studies. She got a cut-off of 194.75 for medical and 196.75 for engineering and she “wants to become a doctor.”

P. Manikandan, a Dalit boy from Thirupalaikudi, has scored 1,088 marks with a cut-off of 196.25 for medical and 196.75 for engineering. He has scored centum in Maths but preferred to do medicine. “But for the special coaching, I could not have got these marks,” he said adding his parents were happy about his performance.

This year, nine students have secured more than 190 cut off marks for engineering and “we are happy about the overall performance,” S. Navaneethakrishnan, Coordinator for the elite students, said. Parents of most of the students were illiterates and they hailed from poor families but they had the zeal to perform well, he said.