SHILLONG/TURA: It was time for the underdogs in the city to cheer as the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBoSE) officially announced its results for the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examinations on Tuesday.
The SSLC list of the top 20 students was leaked on social media on Monday night and MBoSE scurried to control the damage to its credibility on Tuesday.
However, this was no deterrence for students of St. George Secondary School in Nongmynsong to celebrate as this was the second time that the school topped the chart and the credit this time goes to Duyu Asung. The principal of R.K.Mission Higher Secondary School, Cherrapunjee was also happy over the school sharing the first position. RKM school’s Lamphrang Lyngdoh secured 568 which is the highest total marks.
Similar exultation was witnessed in few other schools in the city which rarely appear on toppers’ lists.
Eriben Presbyterian Secondary School, Synod Higher Secondary School, Brookside Adventist Higher Secondary School, Church of God (Ecc) Secondary School, Hill Crest Secondary School and Christian Academy are among the schools that beat the Goliaths and snatched the trophy.
While Idarikor Warshong of Eriben Presbyterian ranked second, Synod HS School has five students on the top 20 list. Bibek Bhattacharjee of Brookside Adventist and Deeshant Bhattacharjee of All Saints’ Diocesan Higher Secondary School shared the eighth position. Brookside Adventist, Church of God and Christian Academy were among schools to have cent percent successful students.
Saffida Grace L. Nongbri of Church of God shared the ninth position with Debjanee Bhattacharjee of St Mary’s Higher Secondary School.
Both Hill Crest (Dameshwa D Laloo) and Christian Academy (Alethea Phoebe Nongrum) were in the ninth place.
In fact, the top 20 list this year also had two candidates – Monimul Ekram Mondal (13th) and Daiamonlang Mawblei (15th) – from private institutions.
Pass percentage goes down
But the total pass percentage remains low at 54.04, a marginal decrease from last year’s 54.10 and 50,974 students appeared for the exam.
Speaking to media persons on Tuesday, MBoSE executive chairman Pravin Bakshi said, “Students of the Board are doing quite well and their general calibre is on a par with any other board of the country and hence they are getting admission in good colleges and institutions across the country.”
Pointing out that the pass percentage is stable for the last few years, Bakshi said the board would try to take it higher and make evaluation student-friendly.
The highest pass percentage in the last five years was in 2013 at 56.31 that decreased to 54.31 the next year.
South West Garo Hills recorded the lowest percentage of successful students at 21.45 and West Jaintia Hills has the highest at 78.70 followed by East Khasi Hills at 76.51.
Pass percentage in other districts are – East Garo Hills at 36.22, West Garo Hills 34.31, South Garo Hills 28.48, West Khasi Hills 67.09, Ri-Bhoi 71.56, North Garo Hills 29.83, South West Khasi Hills 74.36, West Jaintia Hills 78.70 and East Jaintia Hills 74.55.
While East and South Garo Hills, East Khasi Hills, Ri Bhoi and South West Khasi Hills saw slight improvement this year, other districts fell short of their earlier figures from last year.
The Garo Hills region too saw the trend of lesser-known schools, like Bhaitbari Higher Secondary School and Holy Family Secondary School in Rongjeng, taking the pie.
After the HSSLC (Science and Commerce) setback where no candidate from Garo Hills figured on the top 10 list, SSLC results came as a saving grace. The region got eight toppers in the secondary examinations.
It may be mentioned that as many as 110 schools in the State secured cent percent pass percentage in the SSLC examination while 48 schools secured 100 per cent pass percentage in HSSLC examination.
In terms of performance of SSLC results in the last five years, the figures revealed a dismal performance as the overall pass percentage in 2017 is 54.04 per cent while in the year 2016 it was 54.10 per cent.
It was 56.31 per cent in 2013, 54.31 per cent in 2014 and 53.11 per cent in 2015.
On the other hand, the HSSLC results in 2017 showed a slight improvement with 75.38 per cent pass percentage while in 2016 it was 74.04 per cent.