Ranchi, June 2: Mirroring a national trend, lesser known, small town schools of Jharkhand have hogged the limelight in this season of results. Be it CBSE or the Jharkhand Academic Council exams, Garwha, Chatra and Khunti and the like grabbed all the headlines leaving behind the big name schools of Ranchi and Jamshedpur.

Consider this: Of the 48 students who were among the top 10 in CBSE Class X exams, 22 were from schools in places like Garhwa, Chatra, Khunti, Lohardaga, Ramgarh, Daltonganj, Deoghar, Barkakana and Noamundi.

Some of these areas were known to be hotbeds of extremists. Yet young boys and girls from there seemed to have given a befitting reply to counterparts in the big public schools of Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bokaro and Dhanbad.

It sure is time for introspection.

S.R. Modgil, principal of DAV Public School, Hehal, accepted that this trend needed to be acknowledged by the “so called” big names in education. “Location does matter, but marginally. A student of DAV, Kathara topping the CBSE 10th list does not surprise me,” he said. “Today, with easy access to the Internet and cable channels, students of smaller towns aren’t left behind.”

While schools like Kairali School here haven’t found much success — it doesn’t figure among the top five rank-holders — the likes of Shaista Sultana, who was adjudged city topper and came a very close second to state topper Tirthankar Kumar, has got managements of big-name schools thinking.

Academicians accepted that students from small towns stayed focussed perhaps due to fewer distractions. Mahesh Bareja, principal of DPS, Ranchi, admitted he knew little about Kathara — the CBSE Class X topper is from a school there. “Maybe the student was very bright. But it is a fact that there is less scope of any kind of distraction in smaller towns,” he said.

Bareja said trend was true for IIT entrance exams, too, as more students from the interiors of Bihar and Jharkhand were proving to be successful.

Even the reputed St Xavier’s College was bested by lesser known IGSI, Mandu, in the new district of Ramgarh — the JAC conducted intermediate science topper Uttam Kumar was from there. Tarak Nath of Godda College in Santhal Pargana came third in the intermediate exam. The remaining eight ranks in the examinations went to Xavier’s.

In intermediate arts as well as commerce, reputed colleges like Xavier’s did not come up to the mark.

Father Nicholas Tete, Xavier’s principal, however, did not read much into the trend. “JAC’s matriculation results aren’t reliable. All our students have done well, but they did not top,” he said.

Tete, who had analysed the science results, said: “Our students have performed better in commerce and arts streams. However, our pass percentage was lower in the science subjects.”