CBSE Class 10 joint topper Nandini Garg wants to be an IAS officer

Nandini Garg of Uttar Pradesh’s Shamli scored a perfect 100 in four subjects and 99 in Hindi to share the top position with three other students in CBSE’s Class 10 board examinations on Tuesday.

Garg is one of the three girls - Rimzhim Agarwal of RP Public School in Bijnor of Uttar Pradesh and Sreelakshmi G of Bhavan’s Varuna Vidyalaya in Kerala’s Kochi - along with Prakhar Mittal from DPS in Gurgaon’s Sector 45 who shared the top rank.

“The credit for my success goes to my school teachers, parents and my self-study,” the student of Scottish International School said.

Nandini’s father Rajeev Garg and uncle Ritesh Garg are the directors of the school.

“Nandini kept herself away from social media and never used any electronic gadget, including mobile phones,” Ritesh said.

He said Nandini’s teachers were very helpful and guided her at every step.

Nandini said she is fond of Indian music and dance and wants to become an Indian Administrative Service or IAS officer.

Seven students secured the second position with 498 marks and 14 students bagged the third spot with a score of 497. Officials said 131,493 students crossed the 90% mark and 27,476 scored more than 95% out of more than 16 lakh who appeared for the exam.

The overall pass percentage, however, fell to 86.70 from 90.95 last year, registering a dip of 4.25 percentage points. In 2016, 96.21% students cleared the exam.

Girls did better than boys with an overall passing percentage of 88.67 compared to 85.32 for boys, repeating a pattern seen for the last few years.