Sherwood School, Tura. Telegraph picture

Shillong, May 22: Garo hills is facing a paradox of sorts as far as the SSLC results are concerned.

Despite the overall low pass percentage of students in the Garo hills districts, schools in Tura (West Garo Hills) have surpassed Shillong schools by securing maximum number of toppers in the Meghalaya Board of School Education results.

Among the top 20 students in the order of merit, the majority is from schools in Tura.

While Sherwood School, Tura secured nine of the top 20 positions, St Anthony’s Higher Secondary, Shillong got five positions, including the top rank.

The students of other Tura schools, Aeroville Secondary School, Tura Town Higher Secondary School and St Xavier’s Secondary School also figure in the top 20.

The students of Sherwood School who are among the top 20 include Anushree Sharma and Arantxa Wanchi Sangma (sharing seventh position), Divya Roy (ninth), Srinivas Achaju Newar (11th), Sherry Arbella D Marak (13th), Saurav Sarkar (15th), Jaydeep Modak (18th) and Niharika Bhowmik (19th).

Azalea Chijanggi K. Marak of Aeroville Secondary School, Tura secured fifth position in the order of merit and others from the school include Priyeta Das (12th position) and Mayachi K. Marak (16th).

While Divakar Palit of Tura Town Higher Secondary School secured 15th position, Crowny Tegamchi Ch Momin of St Xavier’s Secondary School, Tura shared 17th position.

While the Tura schools shone in the SSLC examinations, the success is still far for the schools in the rural areas of the state especially South Garo Hills and East Garo Hills.

The schools in Tura which have high success rate are all private institutions and the government run schools in the outskirts of Tura could not compete with them. John Kharshiing, co-chairman of the state planning board, said the lack of professional approach and inadequate training of teachers resulted in poor results in rural schools in Garo Hills.