HYDERABAD: Though
Telangana managed to marginally improve its performance in the second-year intermediate examination this year with a pass percentage of 67.06% vis a vis 67% last year, students from Hyderabad district failed to put up a good show this year as well and were outshined by their counterparts from neighbouring Medchal and Ranga Reddy.
While a staggering 80% candidates from Medchal and 77% from Ranga Reddy cleared the test, Hyderabad’s 65% pass percentage paled in comparison. In fact, only 44,648 of 68,290 students from Hyderabad cleared the second-year intermediate examination. Among first year students too the pass percentage was 63% with just 44,769 candidates out of 71,246 passing.
According to the results released on Friday, as many as 2.84 lakh students out of 4.29 lakh, made the cut. Only 1.52 lakh secured ‘A’ grade (75% and more).
Interestingly, the trend of girls outsmarting boys continued with their pass percentage touching a high of 72.7% in comparison to the boys’ 61%.
What stood out though, was the performance of state-run institutions. Unlike in the past, the average pass percentage of all government colleges shot to a high of 81%, even as private colleges managed to secure just about 69%.
Education department officials said they were not surprised at Hyderabad district’s lower pass percentage as it includes students from various mediums of education.
“In Hyderabad district, we have students appearing for the exam in different mediums like Kannada, Odiya, Telugu, Urdu, among others. As it is more difficult to score marks in other mediums, it affects the overall performance. In Medchal and RR districts though, most of the candidates are from English medium,” said B Jayaprada Bai, district intermediate education officer (DIEO), Hyderabad.
Medchal and the newly-created
Komaram Bheem district walked away with all the laurels by securing a pass percentage of 80%, followed by Ranga Reddy district (77%). However, Mahbubabad stood at the bottom of the 31-district list with just about 40% students managing to clear the Class 12 exam.
“In the two districts (RR and Medchal), the count of corporate colleges too is very high, as compared to Hyderabad, and those students spend way too much time in college. Under my purview, they are more private and government colleges,” she added.
Officials also claimed that the lack of ‘self-centres’ in Hyderabad district coupled with strict invigilation impacted the results. “Here, there are no selfcentres, hence, the chances of a student cheating in the examination is very less. This is also evident from the number of malpractice cases reported in the district. This shows that exams are conducted in a fair way here,” the DIEO claimed.
This year, 412 candidates were booked for indulging in malpractice during the intermediate examinations, of which only a handful of them were booked from Hyderabad.
Speaking about the options available to students who failed to clear the exam, education minister Kadiyam Srihari said: “These candidates, along with the ones who want to improve their results, have to apply for supplementary exam by April 20. The board will be conducting instant or supplementary examination from May 14.” He clarified that there will also be a provision for recounting and availing of scanned copy-cum-reverification of valued answer scripts.