Best result in last three years Hats off to all students

At 86 pass percentage this year’s Class XII examination conducted by the Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur is the best in the last three years. Not bad going at all and the splendid performance of the students should be acknowledged. It is also noteworthy that the three toppers in Science, Arts and Commerce are all girls and this suits the place which gave the meira paibi movement to the world and the leading roles taken up by womenfolk in different spheres of life. Equally worth noting too is the fact that the young girl who secured the top position in the Science stream, Archana Hijam, came fourth in the Class X exams two years back and if one remembers, an inquiry conducted under the RTI had revealed that she had scored more marks than the first topper in the Class X exams.   The Class XII result must have surely vindicated the stand of the young girl and her parents and it also needs to be noted that the young girl who came first in the Arts stream comes from a very humble background. With her father passing away some time back, it is her mother who works as a muster roll sweeper with the Imphal Municipal Corporation, who has been her strongest pillar to lean back on, whenever the going got tough. A more or less similar story is the young girl who topped the Commerce stream and has a father who is employed as a van driver with the DDK, Imphal. A strong statement that family background or financial standing does not matter in the performance of any young, promising students and the stupendous showing by the two girls who topped in the Humanities stream and Commerce stream should give all the conviction that hard work can yield good returns.
This is the beautiful and exquisitely humane story in the results of the just declared Class XII examination. On the other hand, as usual, a number of schools have gone to town highlighting the credible performances of their students. One only wishes that in doing this, at least some school would be in the position to tell the story of how they managed to take a student, who for example scored 75 percent in the Class X examination two years back, but now has 85 percent to show. Or are there no such cases ? Remember it would be a much more easier task to help someone who scored 85 percent in the Class X examination to score 90 percent two years hence than to bring a 75 percent student in Class X to the 90 percent bracket two years later. This is how the grade of a school may be judged, as marks and only marks seem to be the criterion to judge the performance of a student in the given system. As in the past, many of the students who have just finished their Class XII will move outside Manipur to pursue their higher education and while there is nothing wrong in this, it is the compulsion felt by many parents and students themselves to move outside for a more rounded and meaningful education that should disturb all. Why do students feel the compelling need to move outside for their higher studies is a question that should be asked by everyone, especially those who have mastered the art of disturbing the academic pursuit of the young students.