‘We had to convert our bathroom into a makeshift study for my preparations’

NEWDELHI: In July last year, Class 12 student Prince Kumar was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis which kept him out of school for one month. He spent the next few months in recovery, but nothing deterred Kumar and he emerged as the Delhi government schools’ topper with 97% marks.

For the first time in 20 years, over 90% of Delhi’s government school students who appeared in the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) Class 12 examinations passed the exam, marking the highest pass percentage for government schools in two decades.

The CBSE announced the Class 12 results on Saturday with over 83% overall pass percentage.

Kumar, son of a DTC driver, lives in a one-room house in Palam with his family. He studies in science stream at government’s Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya ( RPVV) schools, which admits students based on an entrance test from Class 6 onwards.

“We have a bathroom attached to the room that my father converted into a makeshift study room. It is very small and accommodates just a table and chair. My elder sister and I take turns to study in that room. Sometimes when we study at the same time, my parents sit in the kitchen so they don’t disturb us,” Kumar said.

Kumar is waiting for results of the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) that is used for admission to the Indian Institute of Technology (IITS) and National Defence Academy (NDA).

Scoring 96.2%, Prachi Prakash topped the commerce stream in government schools. Prakash, a student of RPVV Surajmal Vihar, hopes to crack the entrance exam for DU’S bachelor of management studies (BMS).

She said her family could not afford to send her to a good private school, but studying in a government school has been good for her. “Our teachers are very good and we got extra Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Palam Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Surajmal Vihar classes to prepare for the boards. I will now either go for BMS or Bcom (hons) at DU,” she said.

Prakash’s father works as a supervisor in a private factory. “It has been difficult to educate her and her elder brother as I have limited means. But for me, education is more important Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Civil Lines than anything else,” Dharma Prakash said.

Meanwhile, the topper of the humanities stream is Chitra Kaushik with 95.6% marks. She too studied at a RPVV school in Civil Lines. Kaushik’s father is an assistant sub inspector with Delhi Police.

Kaushik said she wants to become a civil servant and plans to study political science at DU. “My dad is my inspiration. My dad told me that I should dream freely and that he would help me achieve them. We have relatives who would comment why he is spending so much on his daughters’ education, but my dad would not care about such comments,” she said.

The government schools have outperformed private schools for the third year in a row. The board shared data which showed that 90.68% of the students in government schools had passed the exams this year, while only 88.35% of the students from “independent” institutions (private schools) had cleared the exam in Delhi.

As per the Directorate of Education and CBSE’S data this also the highest pass percentage for government schools in the last 20 years.

In 1998, only 63.45% of government school students had passed the exams, according to the DOE data, and this has steadily climbed over the years.