99% highest score, but overall ICSE results 'not as expected'

NOIDA: City students heaved a sigh of relief as the Council for Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) declared the results of classes 10 and 12 on Sunday. Despite the disruptive study cycle during the Covid-19 years, the students have performed well in the first regular board exams over the past three years.
In the Class 10 (ICSE) exam, The Shriram Millennium School in Noida and St Joseph's School in Greater Noida reported the highest score in the city, 99%.
At 98%, Jesus and Mary Convent School in Greater Noida reported the second-highest score.
In the Class 12 (ISC) exam, The Shriram Millennium School reported the highest score in the city, 98%. On the other hand, St Joseph's School and Jesus and Mary Convent School reported 97.3% and 94% as their highest scores, respectively.
"As we congratulate all the students, parents and dedicated faculty for this amazing performance, we at The Shriram Millennium School firmly believe that marks alone do not define a student. For the holistic growth of students, creativity, innovation, sensitivity, and resilience are equally important. While we can not measure these qualities quantitatively, they are just as important in shaping an individual," said Uttara Singh, principal of the school.
In Ghaziabad, St. Paul's Academy in Raj Nagar and Mount Carmel School in Muradnagar reported the highest score in the city, 99%, in the Class 10 exam.
Meanwhile, in the Class 12 exam, St Paul's Academy and Konark Public School, Sahibabad, scored 97%, the highest in Ghaziabad.
"Consistency is the key to success, I believe. To score well, students need to focus on individual subjects every day. Nowadays, social media is a big distraction. I deactivated my social media accounts before the boards," said Pari Choudhary, a student who appeared in the Class 10 exam this year from Holy Child School, Ghaziabad.
According to the CISCE officials, this year, the overall pass percentage is 98.9 in Class 10 and 96.9 in Class 12.
From across the country, 2,37,631 students from 2,616 schools appeared for the Class 10 exam, and 1,09,500 students from 1,219 schools appeared for the Class 12 exam.
Some principals claimed that Covid had an impact on the results. "Though students scored brilliant marks this year, the overall result was not as we expected. Last year the performance was better. However, this may be because students gave regular exams for the first time after the pandemic," said Father Alwyn Pinto, principal of St Joseph's School.
However, students are celebrating their successes. "I am happy with the result. My suggestion to juniors: study hard and focus on what you want. I mostly relied on my self-made notes to study for the exam. My sincere thanks to all my teachers and parents," said Diviyanshi Srivastava, a student of Holy Child School.