Thane toppers in SSC merit list.

June 27: After suburbs making their mark in the HSC examinations, now its the turn of satellite townships. A record number of 33 students from Thane have made it to the SSC merit list of Mumbai division this year. Seven of them belong to the Sulochanadevi Singhania School managed by the JK Group of Industries. This is the first time in the history of Thane district that such a large number of students from one single school have made it to the merit list.

The HSC results this year had clearly established suburbs' edge over the south Mumbai college. Experts had attributed the phenomenon to the shift in population due to rising real estate prices in the town. The SSC results seem to have only reinforced the theory, which is being referred to as the `great geographical divide.'

The JK school shares the honour of having the largest number of students in the merit list with the Bal Mohan Vidhya Mandir, which also has seven students in the merit list. Kirit Sopan Talole of the S V Joshi High School, Dombivli (91.86 per cent) has topped in the district, while Sankalpa Sanjay Gokhale, of R H M Pandit High School, Safala and Sulochana Devi Singhania High School's Gaurav Choubal share the second spot having secured 91.93 per cent marks each.

The third position is shared by Sandeep Mohan Jethwani of the Singhania High School and Prathamesh Sashikanth Sahasrabuddhe of the Tilak Nagar Vidhya Mandir Dombivli. Both of them are tied at 91.60 per cent.

Girl students, like other parts of the state, have done well in Thane too. While the overall pass percentage in the district is 52.88 per cent, the same for girls students is 56.37 per cent, much better than 50.18 of boys. Another heartening thing about the results is the distribution of meritorious students in the district. Quite a few of them are from semi-urban Saphala, Bhiwandi and Tarapur areas of the district. Meanwhile, the JK School this afternoon wore a festive look. The principal of the school, D R Jani, who will be retiring soon, told this correspondent that the school's success was a `big surprise' for him. He said the board of the school had decided to make a conscious attempt to bring in the best of the results this year. The school's pass percentage being a perfect 100 for many years now, merit list was only the next logical stop.

Asked as to what was the secret of their success, Jani said that this time the school experimented in changing the combination of subjects. ``That, the teachers' hard work and students killer instinct did the trick for us,'' he said.

He said the school will change affiliation from state SSC Board to ICSC from next year and the first batch of ICSC students will roll out in 2001.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.