The year of the have-nots....

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI, MAY 31. Ever the accused for bringing down the pass percentage of the Delhi region, the government schools of the city have some reason to cheer this year with their Class X students managing to improve on the previous year's pass percentage while those of the privileged private schools have recorded a drop.

In fact, government schools are the only category of schools to have recorded an improvement -- howsoever marginal -- over the previous year's performance. While Kendriya Vidyalayas maintained last year's pass percentage of 80.5, the remaining four categories of schools saw a drop in the percentage of students clearing the Class X examinations the results of which were declared on Thursday.

While government school students improved their pass percentage by 1.4 per cent, the independent schools saw a drop of 2.2 per cent, the government-aided schools of 3.3 per cent, the Janvadi Navodaya Vidyalayas of 4 per cent, and the Patrachar (Private) stream of 4.9 per cent. Even though the improvement in the pass percentage of government schools is abysmally low, these educational institutions for once cannot squarely be held responsible for the drop in the city's pass percentage.

Emphasising this, Delhi's Education Minister, Dr. Narendra Nath, sought to underline the fact that while the national pass percentage had increased by only 1.2 per cent, that of government schools in the Capital had gone up by 1.4 per cent. Conceding that the government schools still had a long way to go with a pass percentage of 39.9, the Minister said there had been a marked improvement in their performance over the past couple of years.

Making a political point of this improvement, Dr. Narendra Nath cited statistics to drive home the point that the pass percentage of government schools had been steadily improving since the Congress-led Government took charge in the city in 1998: ``From 32 per cent in 1998, the pass percentage of government schools has come up to 39.9 per cent.''

In view of the fact that 45.82 per cent of the students placed in compartment in the city are from government schools, the Government has decided to arrange special coaching classes for such students. Similar arrangements have been made by the Delhi Government for those placed in compartment in the Class XII examinations. Last year also the Government had arranged special coaching as a result of which 60 per cent of the students placed in compartment managed to clear the examinations.

As for the Pratibha Vikas Vidyalayas -- the three super ability schools launched by the Delhi Government a couple of years ago to provide quality education to intelligent students from economically weaker sections -- the performance has been nothing short of sterling. While the school at Suraj Mal Vihar scored a cent per cent pass percentage, the other two schools -- one in Rohini and the other in Paschim Vihar -- saw 96.6 per cent of their students clearing the examination!

Meanwhile, the Delhi Government has decided to write to the managing committees of government-aided schools demanding an explanation for the drop in the pass percentage of their institutions.

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