Mumbai tops SSC 90% club, but pass rate dips

The city’s Secondary School Certificate (SSC) report card for 2011 is a bittersweet one. On the one hand, Mumbai’s overall performance has fallen by 1.13% as compared to last year’s 81.16%.
But the Mumbai division has managed to climb up a few rungs: ithas jumped from the fourth place in the state to stand second only to Pune.
With a success rate of 80.03%, just 0.36% away from Pune (80.39%) which ranks first, Mumbai has outperformed six other divisions this year.
City students have another reason to celebrate. The number of students who have scored 90% and above has gone up in the Mumbai region by 0.31% as compared to last year. While 13,456 students had scored in that range in 2010, this year around 14,523 students fall in that category. The number of distinction holders has also gone up from 73,432 to 77,346 this year.
The division’s performance versus other regions in Maharashtra has been improving steadily, say officials, who are not too worried about the 1.13% drop. Mumbai was sixth on the state list in 2009 and fourth last year.
In fact, if one looks merely at the fresh candidates-students who appeared for the board exam for the first time-the Mumbai zone proudly stands first among all others. Of the 3.03 lakh candidates who took the exam for the first time, 2.66 lakh or 87.93% cleared it.
R R Bhise, secretary of the Mumbai divisional board, said: “The quality of education imparted is improving and we have managed to maintain it. Schools, teachers, parents and students strive equally to achieve good results. And students here are quite competitive, too.”
City schools are happy with their children’s performance. Anjana Prakash, principal of Hansraj Morarji Public School in Andheri, said: “The students of Class X have performed very well in our school this year. The performance of high scorers is going up every year in schools.” Her views were echoed by heads of various other schools like Balmohan Vidyamandir and St Mary’s School.
But how will these students make it to top colleges with competition from thousands of equally deserving candidates from the national boards?
“Though state board schools are doing well, it is not fair to compare the CBSE and ICSE performances with our students. They come from a different background. Many state board students do not have anybody to guide them at home, but those from the central boards are usually well informed and have a good support system,” said Prakash.
The number of repeaters (those who failed to clear the board exam in previous attempts) is also going up.
This year, about half a lakh students from the Mumbai zone were repeaters. Many of these were candidates who had not cleared Class VIII or Class IX and took the board examas external students, said former Mumbai board secretary Basanti Roy.