 |
| From left: Arnab Pal, Indrani Bhowmick, Koushik Chaudhury and Bhaskar Chowdhury |
July 27: Arnab Pal of Siliguri Boys’ High School notched up a score of 940 in the higher secondary exams, while Indrani Bhowmick topped the list of Jalpaiguri Government Girls’ High School with 931 marks.
There were toppers from each school, but there were only stray streaks of brilliance in an otherwise dismal overall performance.
The showing of Siliguri schools seems to have slipped this year.
Of the 247 students who appeared for exams from Siliguri Boys’ High School, 81 secured first division marks. Of them, 25 have got star marks (more than 75 per cent).
“Though the highest score has risen this year, the level of performance has dropped. Bengali is one subject in which most students have scored badly,” said Chandan Das, the headmaster of the school.
“It was from media persons that I came to know his results,” said a jubilant Pranab Pal, Arnab’s father. Arnab is away in Calcutta recovering from a jaundice attack.
He has got admission in Bengal Engineering (BE) college, Shibpur, where he is studying civil engineering. He has been unable to attend classes because he is suffering from jaundice,” said Pranab.
Like Arnab, Indrani is also pursuing civil engineering at BE college, Shibpur, though not out of choice. “If I get a chance to pursue a BSc course with honours in chemistry from either Presidency College or Jadavpur University, I will quit engineering,” Indrani said.
In Margaret (Sister Nivedita) High School, Pritam Das scored the highest, 898. Of the 316 students, 126 secured first division with 20 star scorers. “This year the overall performance has gone down. There are no star scorers from arts and commerce stream,” said Somesh Dutta, the headmaster.
Siliguri Girls’ High School, however, found something to cheer about. Srimoyee Banerjee’s score of 822 in Arts, has come as a pleasant surprise to all.
The school topper was Pritha Karmakar of the Science stream, who notched up 850.
“We had never seen such a high score in the Arts stream. However, we are concerned about the slip in performance. The number of star scorers has gone down and several students have got compartmental,” said Kalyani Chakraborty, the school’s headmistress.
Pritam Dey and Abhrajit Roy jointly topped from Phanindra Deb Institution with a score of 891.
Ishita Neogi topped from Jalpaiguri Central Girls High School with 793. The school saw 57 of 113 students securing first division, with seven of them scoring star marks.
“Of all the north Bengal districts, Darjeeling has the best pass percentage of 68.76, higher than the state average of 62.6 per cent. The lowest is in Cooch Behar — at 46.1 per cent,” said Malay Roy, the deputy secretary of the higher secondary council, north Bengal.
Bhaskar Chowdhury, who secured 905 marks in the science stream, was one of the highest scorers from Malda district. Sudipta Biswas of Barlow Girls’ School scored 871 marks.
Sujay Bhowmik of Raiganj Coronation High School notched one of the highest scores in North Dinajpur district. He secured 941 marks.
“I am not happy with the result. I shall get the math and English papers reviewed,” he said.
Maklesur Rahman of Gangarampur High School in South Dinajpur district secured 921 marks.
Koushik Chaudhury of Cooch Behar Jenkins School was one of the highest scorers, grossing 916.