June 5: About half the students in the top 10,000 on the state JEE merit list are from the CBSE and only a quarter from the Bengal board, a telling disparity illustrating the Delhi board curriculum's edge over the state syllabus.

Among the top 10 candidates, six are from the CBSE, three from the Bengal HS council and one from the ISC council.

The Bengal JEE results were announced today and a merit list of 100,433 candidates was published.

The JEE board only shared statistics related to the top 10,000 examinees and the figures paint a picture far from rosy for Bengal board students as well as students from Bengal in general.

A board official said a candidate whose name figured among the top 10,000 stood a better chance at bagging a berth at Jadavpur University or any of the government engineering colleges or a top-notch self-financed tech institute.

Metro sifts through the data released by the board

Outsiders' edge

Of the 100,976 candidates who appeared in the April 23 test, 24.3 per cent were from Bihar and 8.5 per cent from Jharkhand. In the top 10,000, 30.2 per cent were from Bihar and 11.6 per cent from Jharkhand.

"Students from Bengal accounted for 63.6 per cent of the total number of examinees. Only 52.3 per cent of them are in the top 10,000," JEE board chairman Malayendu Saha said.

"The statistics reflect more competition for home students rather than a surge in local competence," the chairman said.

CBSE on top

In all, 4,700 candidates from the CBSE are in the top 10,000 on the JEE merit list. In contrast, students of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education total 2,600 in the same bracket.

Of the total number of candidates, 25 per cent were from the CBSE, compared with 46 per cent from the state HS council.

The JEE board chairman said their question pattern was modelled on JEE-Main, conducted by the CBSE.

ISC 'stellar' show

"ISC students have also registered a stellar performance in the top 10,000 bracket," board chairman Saha said. Nine hundred ISC candidates are among the top 10,000. "The success stands out, given that only six per cent of the candidates were from the ISC council," a JEE board official said.

What it reveals

"The results suggest that the HS council's syllabus has failed to train students in the way the central boards have," a teacher in an engineering institute in the city said.

Earlier, there was a perception that science and math curricula of the Delhi boards were weaker compared with the ones followed by their Bengal counterparts. "The situation must have changed with the HS council failing to keep pace with time," the teacher said.

The HS council has been taking measures since 2015 to bring its curriculum on a par with the ones followed by the Delhi boards but, going by the JEE results, those do not seem to have achieved their objective, a Presidency teacher said.

The council had in 2015 introduced a mix of multiple choice and short-answer questions, along with project work. "It appears the central board students are better at answering such questions," the teacher said.

Outstation students figured in significant numbers - 25,000 - in the top 10,000 for first time in 2013.

Last year, 7,530 outstation students had figured in the top 10,000.