At 99.25%, Mumbai girl gets second rank at ISC

MUMBAI: Rishika Dhariwal, a humanities student of Jamnabai Narsee School, Juhu, bagged the second position in the country, along with three other students, in the ISC exams. The results were announced on Monday. Coming from humanities background and competing with students from science and commerce streams to bag one of the top slots is no mean achievement. Not just Dhariwal, most city schools have seen their ISC students doing well in humanities in the recent years.

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) also applied the `controversial' moderated policy to the scores of students this year, but only at the lower level.

While the national success rate in ISC exams has almost remained the same at 96.47%, the performance in Maharashtra improved marginally by 0.3%. In the state merit list, 11 students shared the top three slots. Of the 11, five students are from science stream, four, including Dhariwal, from humanities and two from commerce. "I wanted to pursue a career in psychology and so my interest in these subjects came naturally. I wish to study psychology from either Delhi University or St Xavier's College and become a psychologist," said Dhariwal.

Subjects like psychology and sociology helped students from humanities stream score more marks. Commerce students fared well in mathematics and economics. "Students' grades have bettered this year. They were able to score 100 on 100 in subjects like economics, which is rare," said Kalyani Patnaik, principal, Hiranandani Foundation School, Powai. At the school, 12 out of the 64 students who took the exam managed to score above 90%.

Principal of Jamnabai Narsee School, Zeenat Bhojabhoy , said humanities students are generally hard-working and the curriculum is demanding. "Students from other boards are also keen on pursuing ISC (humanities) for classes XI and XII because of the curriculum. Our students do a lot of field trips and write a lot based on their experience. It helps them get higher scores. Whereas in commerce, more of mathematics and application-based questions are involved," said the principal, adding that the results at the college this year are more or less similar to last year with a marginal drop of 0.5%.

The school sends over 220 students for the boards every year. This year, apart from Dhariwal, five other students in the top three slots in the state are from Jamnabai.

After the CBSE decided to follow the moderation policy, on the Delhi high court's directive, the CISCE too continued with the rules this year. Gerry Arathoon, chief executive and secretary of CISCE, said marks were moderated this time, like always, but only at lower level."Grace marks were given to certain students but it was not a blanket hike," said Arathoon.