New Delhi: Students from private schools have continued to fare worse than their peers from government and government-aided schools in the Central Board of Secondary Education's Class XII exams, whose results were announced on Saturday.

The results appear to belie the popular perception that private schools impart a higher quality of education than government and aided schools.

Some 83.01 per cent of the students passed, up from 82.02 per cent last year, with 88.31 per cent of the girls passing, against 78.99 per cent of the boys.

A total of 1,106,772 students from 11,510 schools took the March-April exams, marred by the leak of the economics paper. The economics exam was re-conducted.

Among the regions, Trivandrum registered a 97.32 per cent pass rate, followed by Chennai (93.87) and Delhi (89). Guwahati (69 per cent) fared the worst. Bhubaneswar, which covers Bengal too, witnessed an 82 per cent pass rate while Patna (Bihar and Jharkhand) recorded 70 per cent.

While 72,599 examinees scored over 90 per cent, 12,737 of them bettered 95 per cent.

Meghna Srivastava from Noida scored a record 499 out of 500 to top the exam while Anoushka Chandra from Ghaziabad scored 498. Last year's topper, Raksha Gopal, had secured 498.

A former CBSE chairperson who did not want to be identified frowned on the recent practice of making the names of the toppers public.

"It's unfair to declare someone the topper on the basis of their aggregate. Science students' aggregate marks cannot be compared with those of humanities students," he said. "Besides, there's a degree of subjectivity in the award of marks."

The pass rate was worst among students from the private schools, which make up 80 per cent of CBSE-affiliated schools. The government and government-aided schools under the board are located in Delhi and the other Union territories.

Quality varies starkly among the private schools, the former board chairperson said. "Some of the private schools are good, some are moderate and many are poor.'

Principals and teachers from private schools conceded the problem of quality in many of these schools but mainly blamed private tuition for their students' poor performance.

"Many parents send their children to private tuition centres. These centres mostly inflate the marks in their internal exams, creating false hopes," said Ira Khanna, principal of DAV Public School, Kailash Hill, Delhi.

"The student does not pay attention either in school or during tuition and ends up performing badly in the board exam."

Khanna added: "Notes are dictated at the tuition centres and the students is made to mug them up. There's no focus on developing analytical skills or understanding.'

Kiran Mehta, director of academics at Mother Mary School in Mayur Vihar, Delhi, said that many students study for the various competitive exams, ignoring their preparations for the board exam.

Mehta suggested that a student's board marks should get some weight during admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of Technology and other technical and professional institutions.

Private schools are largely based in urban areas, and their students are likelier than others to take private tuition or competitive exams.

Priyanshi, a Class XII student from K.V. Gole Market here, said the marks she had secured in the re-conducted economics paper were up to her expectations.

"I was anxious after the economics paper was cancelled because of a leak. My performance was okay in the re-test. The result is fine," she said.

Students from the central government-run Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan have clocked the highest pass rate, followed by those from the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas.

Among all the KVS regions, Ernakulum recorded the highest pass rate of 99.91 per cent, followed by Chandigarh (98.84) and Dehradun (98.72).