JEDDAH, 28 May 2006 — Salman Sajid Khan and Prashanthi Turumella of the International Indian School in Dammam (IISD) topped the list of Indian school students in Saudi Arabia who passed the Grade X CBSE examination. They scored 95.8 and 94.6 percent marks respectively as results were announced yesterday. The third position went to Neena Chris of IIS Riyadh who scored 94.4 percent.
Salman Sajid Khan made history by scoring the highest aggregate in the Kingdom, just one mark short of coming first in the entire Gulf. In addition, IISD achieved a 100 percent pass with all 540 students who took in the exam gaining pass marks. On the other hand, one student from a total of 572 at the IIS Jeddah and five out of 495 students at IIS Riyadh failed their exams.
Abrar Ahmed topped the IISJ list by achieving 93.4 percent, followed by Parvathy Subhash who scored 93.2 percent and Kauser Abdul Malek Ali at 93 percent. “Our students obtained 1,114 distinctions in different subjects,” said Principal Syed Masood Ahmed. Among the IISJ boys, Mohammed Husain scored 90.6 percent, Niraj Babu 89.8 percent and Daniel B. Hickman 89.2 percent.
The Dammam school results showed 30 students scoring over 90 percent marks compared to 23 from Riyadh and 14 from Jeddah. A total of 153 students from Dammam, 105 students from Riyadh and 92 from Jeddah scored 80 percent marks. As many as 268 students (68 percent) from Dammam scored over 75 percent compared to 178 students (36 percent) from Riyadh and 179 (31 percent) from Jeddah.
Two IISD students scored 100 percent in mathematics while six scored 100 percent in science, the school authorities said.
IISR achieved a 99 percent pass rate with 340 students achieving first class. Neena was the highest achiever in the school followed by Midhun Nair achieving 93.6 percent and Kiran Krishnankutty at 93.4 percent, said Principal M.J. Siddiqui. IIS Jubail scored a 99 percent pass rate out of a 104 students who took the examination.
In IIS Jubail, which scored 100 percent pass, the best achievers were: Manaswita Deepak (93.8), Megha Premdas (93.8), Shijo J. Joseph (93) and Reeza Azeez (92).
Al-Wurood International School in Jeddah said all of its 24 students who took the exam achieved first class grades and distinctions. Abdallah Yahya Salim (83.8 percent), Faisal Nissar Ahmed (82.4 percent) and Haniya (78 percent) were the best achievers. Principal Mohammed Aejaz commended the students for their hard work.
The Middle East International School in Riyadh said it had scored a 100 percent pass for the fourth consecutive year with 19 students taking the exam. According to school principal Tabassum Farooqi 16 students received first class grades. She said Joel Kuruvilla Daniel, Pratyush Kolli and Dinesh Krishnamoorthy performed well in the exam scoring 97 percent marks in some subjects.
In the Gulf, 93.55 percent of the students who took the exam passed. In the 85 schools in the region, 8,242 students took the examination at 36 centers, and 7,710 students passed.
“Gulf students are continuously doing better and we are quite satisfied with their performance,” CBSE Chairman Ashok Ganguly said in New Delhi.
A total of 647,992 candidates, including 268,939 girls, from 7,194 schools had written the examination at 2,474 centers in India and abroad. The overall pass percentage of 77.16 percent is an increase of 2.56 percent compared to the 2005 results.