Girls outperformed boys yet again in the CBSE Class 12 examinations, the results of which were declared Thursday. Also, the results of Delhi's government schools were the best in the country among all government schools.
The girls recorded an overall pass percentage of 88.52 percent, while boys' pass percentage was 78.27 percent. The overall pass percentage for 2014 - 82.66 percent - recorded a marginal increase of 0.5 percent over last year's 82.10 percent.
"The difference between the pass percentage of girls and boys is 10.25 percent, with the girls doing much better," Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) public relations officer Rama Sharma told IANS.
Kiran Mehta, principal of Salwan Public School, Mayur Vihar in Delhi, told IANS: "This reflects women empowerment. I feel extremely proud seeing girls outshining the boys."
A total of 1.02 million students registered for the Class 12 examinations this year, amounting to an increase of about 8.91 percent candidates over that of last year, the CBSE said in a statement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the students and wished them good luck for the future.
The performance of Delhi's government schools was again the best in the country among all government schools as 88.78 percent of the students cleared the exams, compared to the 2013 figure of 88.62 percent.
Delhi was followed by Ajmer where government schools had a pass percentage of 86.63 percent - a whopping increase from its 2013 figure of 50.64 percent.
Delhi's government-aided schools too fared better with a pass percentage of 86.66 percent in 2014 as compared to 85.17 percent in 2013.
However, the autonomous Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas showed a drop in their results with 93.94 percent of the students clearing their exams in 2014 compared to 97.06 percent in 2013.
With an overall pass percentage of 86.78 percent, the boys in Delhi recorded a pass percentage of 82.09 percent, while the girls recorded a pass percentage of 91.72 percent.
Former chief minister of Delhi and AAP's leader Arvind Kejriwal's daughter Harshita Kejriwal scored 96 percent.
Harshita, a student of Delhi Public School at Noida in Uttar Pradesh, said her father's activism and subsequent venture into politics did not affect her.
The highest pass percentage, 94.26 percent, was from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, followed by Chennai in Tamil Nadu at 91.63 percent.
Delhi came third with 294,120 registered students, out of which 290,463 appeared for the examination and 252,074 passed.
In Thiruvananthapuram, boys recorded a pass percentage of 91.96 percent, while the girls had a pass percentage of 96.72 percent.
Dehradun at 72.77 percent had the lowest pass percentage; the boys recorded a pass percentage of 67.43 percent, while the girls' pass percentage was 81.93 percent.
The national capital registered the maximum number of cases of using unfair means at 13. It was followed by Patna with seven cases, Bhubaneswar (six), Dehradun (five), Panchkula (five), Guwahati (three) and Chennai and Allahabad with one case each.
The percentage of students who appeared for a re-exam reduced from 8.02 percent in 2013 to 7.78 percent in 2014.
The CBSE Thursday announced the results for Delhi and Dehradun regions, and six other regions a day earlier.
Students can access the results on www.results.nic.in, www.cbseresults.nic.in, www.cbse.nic.in and also through SMS and an Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS).
The CBSE is the national board of education for public and private schools and conducts final examinations for Class 10 and Class 12.
