For the first time in at least 20 years, over 90% of government school students who appeared in the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) Class 12 examinations passed the exam, marking the highest pass percentage for Delhi’s government schools in two decades. They also outperformed private schools for the second year in a row, giving the Delhi government added reason to rejoice.
Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia congratulated students on Twitter. “Congratulations to all students, teachers and parents for making us pride [sic] in CBSE Class XII results. Delhi government school’s result is 90.64% [sic] which is 2.37% (points) higher than last year’s 88.27%,” he tweeted.
According to data shared by CBSE, 90.68% of government school students passed the exams this year, while only 88.35% of the students from “independent” institutions cleared the exam in Delhi. A CBSE official clarified that independent institutions refer to private schools.
This is the second year in a row that Delhi’s government schools have performed better than private schools. As per the Directorate of Education (DoE) and CBSE data, this year the government schools achieved their highest pass percentage in the last 20 years. In 1998, only 63.45% of students from government schools passed the exams, according to the DoE data, and this has steadily climbed over the years. It crossed 70 for the first time in 2000, when the pass percentage was 72.54%, and crossed 80 for the first time in 2007 when 82.73% of the government school kids who had appeared for the exam passed.
“We have worked hard. We have provided extra classes, and extra pre-board preparations. We also need to realise that these are children who have been in the system for the last three years. So they have been receiving better education since Class 9,” said a close aide of the education minister.
{{/usCountry}}“We have worked hard. We have provided extra classes, and extra pre-board preparations. We also need to realise that these are children who have been in the system for the last three years. So they have been receiving better education since Class 9,” said a close aide of the education minister.
{{/usCountry}}However, the number of students who have scored over 95% has also dropped by 89.
At the Sonia Vihar Government Girls Senior Secondary School, the head of the school Rajeshwari Kapri said their result had improved by 14.5 percentage points from the previous year.
“We have a pass percentage of 91.5%. There definitely was pressure from the government and authorities to give a better performance, but it also came down to the teachers’ hard work. They spend the whole year prepping, and paid close attention... We were able to achieve this despite having a lack of teachers,” said Kapri.
Prince Kumar, the overall government school topper with 485 marks out of 500, said he is still reeling from the shock of the results. “I am the son of a DTC bus driver. I never expected this... Now I have media people calling me,” he said, choking on tears.
Prince said the government schools had changed for the better in recent years, and it helped his score. “The kids at these schools may come from a particular socio-economic background. But our teachers and facilities are almost as good as private schools. All teachers are well qualified, and they help us out,” said the student of the Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya in Dwarka’s Sector 10. He now hopes to pursue an electronics and communications engineering degree, and has cleared his JEE (Mains).
While some private school principals questioned the validity of the data, others blamed smaller budget private schools for bringing down the overall pass percentage.
“Smaller budget schools may not have enough infrastructure or teachers, so they may not perform as well. But I think government schools have also focused on their work this time, which is why their performance has improved,” said a principal of a private school.
However, to others, one must look beyond such binaries.
“Across the board schools have done well. This private school versus government school debate has to come to an end,” said Ameeta Wattal, the principal of Springdales School, Pusa Road.
Delhi has around 1,100 government schools and at least 1,700 private schools.