Morbi students put up a gritty show; dip in state’s overall pass percentage

While the state saw a decline in the overall pass percentage — from 72.02 per cent in 2022 to 65.58 per cent this year — Morbi district saw 83.22 per cent students clearing the boards. With a pass percentage of 90.41 per cent, the district’s Halvad centre topped the 140 centres in the state. Last year, Rajkot, at 85.78 per cent, had topped the districts while Amreli’s Lathi, at 96.12 per cent, had emerged with the highest pass percentage among examination centres.

Jai Desai (17), among the top-scorers who secured 99.99 percentile in Class 12 Medical stream, is also from Morbi town. He has secured 99.89 percentile in the Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GUJCET). “It (the bridge collapse) was a tragic incident and there was a common feeling of fear among everyone, but the support from our families and teachers helped us overcome it,” Desai, who is preparing for NEET, said.

According to Sudhir Gambhava, a Science teacher at The VC Technical High School — the only government-run higher secondary school in Morbi, the students were motivated towards positive thoughts that helped them to come out of the tragedy. “We also met the parents initially when the school reopened after the tragedy that happened during the Diwali vacations,” he said.

Barely 300 metres from the collapsed bridge, The VC Technical High School was turned into a temporary shelter for the team members of the rescue operation and had lost one of its Class 9 students and three former students in the tragedy. The school recorded a pass percentage of 65.22.

Nayan Vaghela (17), who aspires to be a computer engineer and is among the 33 students who appeared for GSHSEB Class 12 Science exams, told The Indian Express, “We were all shocked and scared after the incident. There were many students who wanted to visit the bridge on that fateful day, but fortunately did not or could not… (but they) were more affected by it. But our teachers helped us both in non-academic and academic problems, which (eventually) paid off”.

“Though no student from our school was hurt in the bridge tragedy, it did leave an impact on the children,” said Nileshbhai Kundariya, Principal of Nirmal Vidyalaya, a private school in Morbi town. Two of the three students from the district with the highest grade of A1 are from the school.

Meanwhile, Dahod and Limkheda continued with a poor show among districts and examination centres respectively. In Dahod, only 29.44 per cent students cleared the exams — lower than last year’s 40.19 per cent. The pass percentage in Limkheda declined by 10 percentage points from 33.33 in 2022 to 22 per cent.

In a decline from the trend over the past few years, boys secured a higher pass percentage than their female counterparts this year. While 66.32 per cent boys cleared the exams, only 64.66 per cent girls passed this year.
As against last year’s count of 196 students who secured A1, only 61 students secured the highest grade this year.

Surat has the highest number of students securing A1 and A2 grades in the state. While 16 students secured A1 grade, 336 students got A2. The overall pass percentage of the district stood at 71.15 per cent. The district also saw the highest number of students registering for Class 12 exams this year.

The pass percentage of English medium students is higher at 67.18 per cent compared to the Gujarati medium students at 65.32 per cent.

Additionally, there has been a rise in the number of schools that saw less than 10 per cent of its students clearing the exams. The number rose to 76 from 61 in a year. At 66.29 per cent, Physics has the lowest pass percentage among the 15 subjects, while the language papers — Hindi, Urdu, Guajrati and Arabic — recorded 100 per cent result.