The cream of the Higher Secondary crop, as usual, came from the districts this year, but schools in the city had a much higher success rate.

As many as 90.8 per cent of the Calcutta-based students who took the examination conducted by the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education — 29,207 out of 32,655 candidates — made the grade. This is 4 per cent more than last year’s record and 10 per cent above the overall pass percentage.

The trend of schools in the districts producing the toppers and those in the city performing better in the larger context continued in the ICSE examination, too. Burdwan boy Sumeru Nayak took the top spot among students of Bengal schools affiliated to the central board.

Debolina Chatterjee, who scored the highest marks among girls in Calcutta, said it did not matter whether a candidate wrote an examination sitting in the city or a district. “As long as what you put down on paper is correct, nobody scratches it out just because you are from Calcutta or a district,” the student from Patha Bhavan said.

The principal of South Point High School, Joyoti Solomon, attributed the continued dominance of the merit list by students from the districts as much to their determination as the complacency of their counterparts in the city.

“Students in the city get more facilities and this sometimes leads to complacency setting in. This could be the reason for the districts having higher representation in the merit list.”

But Solomon said students of her institution did “very well” this year in all streams. “Of the 487 candidates who took the examination (conducted by the state board), just eight secured below 60 per cent marks. As many as 142 students scored above 80 per cent.”

Jodhpur Park Boys’ School did even better. Of the 161 students who wrote the examination, 160 scored first-division marks. The second and third positions in the city’s roll of honour made success sweeter.

Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission, Patha Bhavan and Hare School fared better than in last year’s examination.

Of the 53 students who appeared for the ICSE examination from DPS Megacity, all scored above 70 per cent, the highest being 96.8 per cent. The top ICSE and ISC candidates from The Heritage School scored 96.6 and 96 per cent and those of Bhowanipore Gujarati Education Society got 95.6 and 94.6 per cent.