Pune: ‘No social media and the smartphone’ has proved to be the strongest ‘mantra’ in achieving a good score in the State Secondary Certificate (SSC) examination for students from the city.  The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) announced the SSC exam results of March 2019 on Saturday.

The overall State result has dropped. The Pune division witnessed a dip in its pass percentage with 82.48 per cent this year. As compared to previous year, the pass percentage has decreased by 9.6 per cent from 92.08 per cent in 2018.

It also showed that this year, Pune has recorded the low est pass percentage in the last six years. 

In all, 2,69,957 students had appeared for the exam, of these 2,33,654 qualified or passed. Around 3,443 schools participated in the March 2019 examination in Pune division. 

Sharvari Phatak, who scored 99 per cent and topped at the Ahilyadevi High School for Girls, wants to pursue higher education in humanities and a career in translation or interpretation.

“Science was never an option for me because I didn’t have much interest in that subject. I have been more inquisitive about the number of languages we have in the world. The curiosity developed further after I took up Sanskrit in Std VIII. I scored 99 marks in Sanskrit in Std X. I was also introduced to German language when our school had outsourced a teacher to teach us the course,” said Phatak. 
“It was then that I began to look up for career options in languages and found out about translators and interpreters. Language is vast and I wish to keep learning,” said Phatak, who wants to take admission in the Fergusson College.

Umesh Lad from the Laxmanrao Apte Prashala scored 92.80 per cent and topped in his school. Lad wants to become an architect. “No one in my family has scored above 90 per cent till now. I am the first one to score so high. My family members are so happy. They have been pampering me since my results were out. At first, my father or anyone in my family couldn’t believe I scored so well in this examination. However, I wish to score more in Std XII. I want to fulfill the dreams of my parents,” said Lad, whose father works as peon in a school.

Topper of DES Secondary School, Pradnya Gokhale, a research and medical aspirant, scored 97.20 per cent. “I haven’t fixed upon any career opportunity but I wish to become a doctor. I also have interest in research as well. However, my focus was only to score well so that it would get smoother ahead,” she said.

For Gokhale, staying away from social media and smartphone helped her score better. “Many of my friends had social media accounts. Honestly, I was tempted to join them as well. But I exercised restraint and also my parents were strictly against social media. So that too helped me to not get distracted. However, now after looking at my score, I truly feel that making a wise decision then has somewhere helped me in getting a good score,” said Gokhale.