Boys outshone girls in this year’s Higher Secondary Examination in West Bengal, the results of which were declared on Wednesday. That, despite the number of female examinees far outweighing the number of their male counterparts, which is a commendable feat in itself, at the state’s school leaving exams which began on February 16 this year and concluded 13 days later.
Announcing the results 68 days after the conclusion of exams, the West Bengal Council of Higher Education authorities confirmed that 89.98 per cent of the students have cleared the test this year.
The performance is a marginal jump over last year’s pass percentage which stood at 89.
Addressing a press conference, Council President Chiranjib Bhattacharya said that while 88.18 per cent of girls passed the exams, the corresponding figure for boys stood at 92.12 per cent. This year 7,55,324 students appeared for the class 12 exams.
He said that the Council will look into the reasons behind the success rate of girls dipping by almost four percentage points compared to the boys.
Bhattacharya said that 56 per cent of girls and 44 per cent of boys wrote the papers this year which was a noteworthy change in comparison to the gender ratio a decade ago where 55 per cent boys and 45 per cent girls had appeared for the HS exams.
Of the 58 students who featured in the top 10 ranks, 23 were girls, he said, adding that 42.9 per cent of students secured 60 per cent marks or above while 1.23 per cent examinees shone with 90 per cent marks or more in the top bracket.
Bhattacharya stated that Purba Medinipur topped the chart among all districts of Bengal in terms of the number of successful candidates with 95.77 per cent passouts.
Avik Das from McWilliam Higher Secondary School in north Bengal’s Alipurduar district emerged as this year’s HS topper, Bhattacharya declared.
Das, an aspiring astrophysicist, obtained 496 marks out of the maximum 500 which translates to 99.2 per cent.
Soumyadip Saha of Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya in South 24 Parganas secured the second rank with 495 marks while Abhishek Gupta of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Vidyamandir of Malda clinched third rank with 494 marks, the Council president said.
Two girls, Pratichi Roy Talukdar from Sunity Academy in Coochbehar and Sneha Ghosh from Krishna Bhabini Nari Siksha Mandir of Hooghly jointly stood fourth with 493 marks each (98.6 per cent) and were declared as toppers among girls.
Soumyadip told PTI that he wanted to study statistics. “I love reciting poems and am hooked to story books - both classics and contemporaries. I don’t believe that one needs to study for long hours. It’s just that you need to manage your time well,” the second ranker said.
The Barasat resident thanked his teachers at RKM, Narendrapur and his parents for their continued guidance and support.
