123Pune.com

PUNE: Sumedh Satish Ranade of Fergusson College, Pune, and Pavitra Nityanand Shetty of Pemraj Sarda junior college, Ahmednagar, emerged joint toppers in Pune division by securing 574 out of 600 marks for 95.67 per cent score in the higher secondary certificate (HSC, class XII) examination held in March.

Sumedh also topped the bifocal stream, while Pavitra took the first position among girls in Pune division. The division, which covers Pune, Solapur and Ahmednagar districts, registered an overall pass percentage of 81.46, which was the best among all the eight divisions of the Maharashtra state board for secondary and higher secondary education.

Of the over 1.66 lakh students (old as well as new course), who appeared in the exam, more than 1.35 lakh were declared passed in the division, M.R. Kadam, chairman of Pune divisional board, told reporters on Saturday. The overall result was a 10 per cent improvement over last year's pass percentage of 71.09.

Pune may have had the best overall result in the state, but the same cannot be said in terms of the performance by students from the maiden batch of the new course introduced from 2007-08. The success on this front was still high at 89.72 per cent, but it was bettered by Latur with 90.7 pass percentage and Aurangabad with 89.86 percentage.

The high scoring performance was fuelled by the changes like internal assessment, orals, practicals and objective questions, introduced along with the new course. Of the 1.66 lakh students, 1.45 lakh belonged to the new course batch and 1.30 lakh cleared the exam.

Notably, the performance of the new course students from Ahmednagar and Solapur districts was far better than Pune district. While Ahmednagar's success rate was 93.17 per cent, Solapur's was 93.18 per cent.

The overall second position in the division went to Tanzeema Gulam Patel of Abeda Inamdar junior college, who scored 95.5 per cent. She also topped the science stream. The third position was shared by Jai Bharat Gholap of Laxmanrao Apte junior college and Aditya Anil Huddedar of the Fergusson college, who scored an identical 94.67 per cent.
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