City students have fared miserably in the SSC public examination whose results were announced here on Friday. Hyderabad stood second place from the bottom among all the districts in the state with a pass percentage of only 78.13, which is much below the state average of 88.08 per cent.

Though Hyderabad students' performance in SSC has been improving over the last six years, from 66 per cent in 2008 to 78.13 per cent in 2013, the number of students flunking is still the highest in the city. This year, 13,307, out of a total of 61,314 students in the city failed.

Despite the mushrooming of private schools sporting fancy tags like “international“, “concept“ or “techno“ all over the city, Hyderabad has been standing at the bottom in SSC results year after year.

“The situation is different in Hyderabad when compared to other districts in the state as the city's private schools are more in number than government schools,“ said A.
Subba Reddy, district education officer, Hyderabad. Speaking on the poor performance of Hyderabad in the SSC results, A. Subba Reddy, the district education officer-Hyderabad, said, “The number of students appearing for SSC exams from private schools in Hyderabad is more than those from government schools. While government schools have been improving their performance with each passing year, the poor results in the city are because of poor performance by private schools. We will analyse the results and initiate action against private schools which fared badly .“

There are nearly 1,400 private schools in the city but the quality of education that many of them provide is poor. A majority of the schools have ill-qualified teachers and poor infrastructure, which has been impacting results.

However, the silver lining was that the pass percentage in the city improved over last year's from 76.94 to 78.13 per cent this year. Medak was the only district in the state which secured a lower pass percentage than Hyderabad at 67.96.

While Chittoor topped the state with 94.92 per cent results, East Godvari secured 94.40 per cent, followed by Kadapa (93.80 per cent), Warangal (93.09 per cent), Karimnagar (92.80 per cent), West Godavari (92.45 per cent), Kurnool (91.55 per cent), Guntur (91.24 per cent), Mahbubnagar (91.22 per cent) and Krishna (90.29 per cent).

Out of a total of 10.49 lakh regular students who appeared for the exam across the state, 9.24 lakh passed.