Date:21/05/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/05/21/stories/2008052159721300.htm

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ISC, ICSE: girls outperform boys

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Girls have outperformed boys in the Indian School Certificate (ISC) Class XII and the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) Class X examinations, the results of which were declared by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations on Tuesday.

“Girls have done better than boys at the ISC as well as ICSE level. In ISC, their pass percentage is 98.23 compared with 96.10 of the boys. At the ICSE level, girls have secured a pass percentage of 98.63, while their male counterparts attained 97.57 per cent. In the examinations for Classes XII and X, fewer girls were unsuccessful,” said Gerry Arathoon, Additional Secretary and Officiating Chief Executive and Secretary of the Council.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Arathoon said: “The overall pass percentage for ISC and ICSE this year is 97.04 and 98.04 respectively. The percentage point increase from last year for both Classes XII and X is 0.08.”

As many as 47, 977 candidates — including 21,106 girls — appeared for the ISC examinations, while 1,01,998 students comprising 44, 732 girls wrote the ICSE examinations in March this year.

The ICSE examinations were conducted in 62 written subjects of which 21 were Indian and 10 foreign languages. Examinations were also conducted in subjects such as yoga, agricultural science, drama and Indian dance.

The ISC examination was conducted in 53 written subjects, comprising 14 Indian and nine foreign languages.

With a whopping 99 per cent, the Southern region was ahead of others in the pass percentage of the ISC, while in the case of ICSE, the Western region topped with 99.38 per cent with its Southern counterpart coming a close second with 99.22 per cent.

Foreign schools have performed better in both Classes XII and X with a pass percentage of 99.23 and 99.47 respectively.

The Southern region has the highest percentage entry of girls at ISC (47.12 per cent) as well as ICSE (47.13 per cent).

As many as 729 Scheduled Castes and 1,211 Scheduled Tribes candidates took the ISC examinations this year. Among the Other Backward Classes, 2,148 candidates appeared in the Class XII examinations.

For ICSE, the number of candidates from the SC and ST is 2,400 and 3,022 respectively. As many as 7, 794 students from Other Backward Classes took the examinations achieving a pass percentage of 98.18 per cent.

The overall highest aggregate marks in the ISC examination was attained by Gaurav Sood of Doon School in Dehra Dun, who secured an outstanding 99 per cent.

Two girls, Janaki Kirit Sheth of Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School in Thane and Shruti Singh of St. Joseph’s Convent School in Varanasi topped the Class X examinations with a brilliant 98.6 per cent.