Bihar was beaten by its smaller neighbour, Jharkhand, in the Class XII examination of the Central Board of Secondary Education, the results of which were declared on Sunday.

Jharkhand notched up a pass percentage of 83, while 67 per cent from Bihar made the mark. The combined pass percentage in the CBSE Patna zone, comprising Bihar and Jharkhand schools, was 74.60 per cent this year.

The pass percentage of students from Jharkhand schools this year was much better than their counterparts in Bihar. A total of 36,228 students appeared from Bihar this year, while 32,338 took the exam from Jharkhand.

Last year, the combined pass percentage in the Patna zone was 75.29. The state-wise breakup was not immediately available.

A senior CBSE official said: "Schools in Bihar suffer from acute shortage of teachers. That is the main reason why Bihar students performed poorly than those in Jharkhand. There are some CBSE schools in Bihar where teacher-student ratio is around 1:60. Apart from teachers' shortage, the other reason is Bihar lacks basic infrastructure."

In case of toppers, Manish Khowal of DPS Ranchi emerged as the Patna zone topper, clinching 98.2 per cent in the science stream, while in Bihar, Shiva, a student from CREANE Memorial High School, Gaya, became the Bihar topper by securing 97 per cent.

Among Patna toppers, Keshav Anand from BD Public School led in the science stream by bagging 96.8 per cent marks, DPS Patna student Ayushi Pratap in commerce scored 95.8 per cent, while Aishani Shrivastava, a student from Notre Dame Academy, aced in the arts (humanities) by securing 96 per cent.

Among Patna schools, of 274 students in Notre Dame Academy, 272 students secured first division. In Notre Dame Academy, Amrita Saroja and Ankita Bharti topped science with 95.6 per cent marks, Rashmi Sarraf of the same school topped commerce with 94.8 per cent followed by Mushkan Poddar with 94.2 per cent.

At DAV BSEB, of 150 examinees, 23 secured more than 90 per cent, while 71 clinched more than 80 per cent. Abhinav Sawarn topped the science stream in DAV BSEB with 96 per cent. School principal V.S. Ojha said: "For the past few years, our school had a bad phase due to controversies. Despite that our students performed exceptionally well."

Abha Choudhary, a chemistry teacher at Notre Dame Academy, said: "The performance of our students this year is better than that last year. Apart from academics, our students give equal importance to extra-curricular activities."

At St Michael's High School, Trishla Vats topped science with 95.6 per cent marks followed by Anubhav Deep with 94.6 per cent. From the same school, Jai Jain topped commerce with 94.2 per cent.