Farmer’s son tops JAC matriculation exam

Ranchi: Government-run Netarhat residential school dominated the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) matriculation examination with eight of its students figuring in the top 10 merit list in the results, which were declared by state education minister Jagannath Mahto on Wednesday.
Manish Kumar Katiyar, son of a small-time farmer at Darla Ghat in Sahibganj secured the top position with 98% marks. Talking to TOI, Katiyar said he prepared hard for three months prior to the examination. Stating his performances in his previous classes were satisfactory, Katiya said, “Despite the economic hardship, my father encouraged me to continue with the studies. I want to become an administrative officer in future.”
Kundan Kumar, Sidharth Kumar and Ayush Kumar Hind of the same school were joint second with 97.60% marks. Aditya Harsh and Jatin Raj bagged 97.40% while Suhana Singh and Balwant Kumar secured 97.20% to cement their positions in the top 10.
Boys performed relatively better than girls in the examination. The pass percentage of boys was 75.88 while that of girls was 74.25. This year’s pass percentage of 75.01 is also a slight improvement over last year’s 70.81% in the examination.
A total of 3,87,695 students from nearly 40,000 schools, consisting primarily of government-run institutes from across the state, appeared for the examination and 2,88,928 were declared pass. Of them, 1,48,051 ( 52%) students secured first division while 1,24,036 students (42%) were in the second division.
Ranchi, Palamu and Hazaribag were among the districts that performed well.
Speaking on the occasion, Mahto expressed satisfaction over the results but added that teachers, students and parents should work for further improvement. JAC chairman Arvind Prasad said the examination was conducted from February 11 to 28. He said evaluation of the answer sheets started only in May due to the lockdown.