Hyderabad schools blamed for poor show in SSC exams

HYDERABAD: The city’s performance in SSC has been low consistently in the last five years. Though Hyderabad’s performance in the state board examinations has been improving over the last five years, from 66% in 2008 to 76.94% in 2012, the number of students flunking the test is still the highest in the city. This year, 13,909 of a total of 60,328 students failed in the city.

The state education department officials blamed city private schools for its poor performance in SSC. Though the pass percentages of government schools in the city has been consistently increasing from 56% to 83% in the past five years, the pass percentage of private schools has increased by a marginal 5% in the last five years. With private schools till this year rooting for just top rankers, many students who might have needed extra support were not cared for. It was only this year that the directorate of government examinations announced a grading system based on a 10 point score board so that the students do not get to know their individual marks.

According to the school education department’s records, of the 1,000 schools located in the city and its outskirts several are under the scanner for providing the lowest quality of education and academic ambience. “There are private schools without furniture in classrooms. Still there are some which function from a single room and yet have government recognition. Quality of education provided by these private schools is very poor,” said an official. It was only recently that the school education department blacklisted 32 private schools in Hyderabad and threatened to withdraw their recognition if they failed to pull up their socks.

Ironically, in spite of a poor pass percentage, several students from the city secured a grade point average of 10, the highest score possible. “I studied hard thinking that the marks would be useful to get admission in a good corporate junior college. But with GPA, several of us are at the same level,” said Sravya N from Bhashyam School, Sanathnagar.

Another student who secured a GPA of 10, D Manjula of Gautam School, said that she was happy about the stimulating competitive spirit among her classmates because of the grading system. Hyderabad is only fifth among many districts where over 200 students secured a GPA of 10.