PSEB 10th topper Gurpreet Singh (Express Photo by Gurmeet Singh)
PSEB 10th results 2018: Ever since PSEB has declared its Class 10 results on Tuesday, celebrations at topper Gurpreet Singh’s home at Ludhiana has not got over. A student of Sri Harikrishan Sahib Public Senior Secondary School, Daba Colony, Gurpreet has scored 98 per cent marks in the matric exams. The 15-year-old wants to do B Tech from IITs and desires to be a scientist in the future. “I have already started preparing for JEE (Mains) and for the Class 12 examinations. I have faith in myself to crack the coveted joint engineering entrance examinations by self-study,” said he.
This year, over 40 per cent of the students flunked in the Class 10 examination. The topper blamed the corporatisation of the education and mindset of students for the poor performance. The topper said, “There are lots of institutions in Punjab who have advertised for providing better education, but it is all business and the students take admission to perform well in the exam. But in the process, they neglect the self-study and are unable to do well as per their capacity.” This year, close to 89,000 students flunked in English paper. The topper criticised the teaching method in schools for the poor performance in English over the years in Classes 10 and 12 examinations.
“In Punjab, the teachers focus a lot on the grammar, spoken English and points out mistakes. The students get feared and slowly they loose interest in the subject,” said the topper. Regarding the rise of English-speaking institutes in Punjab, Gurpreet said, “Lots of bright students desires to pursue higher studies in foreign countries. But due to poor English skills, they are unable to crack examinations like TOEFL, GATE, so they took admission into these institutes.”
The topper credited the success to his grandfather, teachers and parents. “My grandfather is my real motivation, as he stood firmly at every condition from my childhood.” Gurpreet’s mother Narinder Kaur is a home tutor and Dabinder Singh is a lab assistant at Shri Krishna Hospital, Ludhiana.
Jasmin Kaur of Shishu Model High School, Bholath, Kapurthala secured the second position with 97.85 per cent and Puneet Kaur ranked third with 97.69 percentage. This year, 2,19,035 students cleared the examination successfully translating a pass percentage of 59.47, a sharp increase of 2 per cent from the last year. Around, 3,68,295 have registered for the examination that was conducted from March 12 to March 31, 2018.