Less developed districts show good result in class 5, 8 exams

LAHORE: A detailed analysis of the results of Punjab Examination Commission’s (PEC) grade-5 and grade-8 annual examinations reveals excellent performance by students from otherwise less developed districts of Punjab in overall exams and in particular in mathematics and science subjects.

While Lahore, the provincial metropolis, remained at bottom in overall pass percentage and subject-wise results in both the exams, the highest pass percent in the subject of mathematics was recorded in Bhakkar in both grade-5 and grade-8 exams 97.89pc and 97.40pc, respectively while the highest pass percentage in science subject was recorded in Chakwal in both the exams, 98.18pc in grade-5 and 98.32pc in grade-8.

Similarly, the highest overall pass percentage (98.19pc) in grade-5 was recorded from Pakpattan while maximum number of students (98.41pc) passed the grade-8 exams from Chakwal district.

Lahore’s overall pass percentage in grade-5 was recorded at 82.54pc and in garde-8 it was 83.33pc. Similarly, in the subjects of math and science, performance of Lahore was recorded at the lowest among the 36 districts. In grade-5 the pass percent of Lahore’s students in math is 78.98pc and in science is 77.81pc. In grade-8 the pass percentage in math is 74.77pc and in science it is 75.02pc.

The top 10 districts vis-à-vis highest overall pass percentage in garde-5 are Pakpattan 98.19pc, Jhang 97.78pc, Okara 97.677pc, Chiniot 97.60pc, Bhakkar 97.53pc, Chakwal 97.40pc, Vehari 97.26pc, Khanewal 97.02pc, Muzaffargarh 96.91pc and Narowal 96.87pc.

In grade-8 the top 10 districts vis-à-vis highest overall pass percentage are Chakwal 98.41pc, Okara 98.10pc, Jhang 98.09pc, Pakpattan 97.86pc, Khanewal 97.79pc, Bhakkar 97.69pc, Layyah 97.54pc, Lodhran 97.46pc, Vehari 97.38pc and Chiniot 97.36pc.

It is pertinent to mention here that Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) had announced the results of grade-5 and grae-8 Annual Examinations 2018 on March 31 according to which pass percentage was recorded at 86.58 in grade-5 and 86.62 in grade-8.

With over 1.5 million students in grade-5 and over one million in grade-8, a total of over 2.5 million candidates had appeared in the two exams held on a uniform basis across 36 districts of Punjab. The overall first position in grade-5 was shared by Zainab Iqbal of Faisalabad and Muhammad Haseeb of Toba Tek Singh while the overall first position in grade-8 was shared by Ghulam Mujtaba Khalid of Bahawalpur and Rija Batool of Vehari. The top 5 districts with the highest pass percentage in math subject in grade-8 are Bhakkar 97.43pc, Khanewal 97.19pc, Okara 96.77pc, Chakwal 96.75pc and Pakpattan 96.59pc. In science the top 5 districts are Chakwal 98.32pc, Okara 97.722pc, Muzaffargarh 97.50pc, Pakpattan 97.42pc and Bahawalnagar 97.31pc.

The top 5 districts with the highest pass percentage in Math subject in grade-5 are Bhakkar 97.89pc, Pakpattan 97.38pc, Narowal 96.97pc, Chakwal 96.81pc and Jhang 96.58pc. In science the top 5 districts are Chakwal 98.18pc, Bahawalnagar 97.62pc, Pakpattan 97.46pc, Muzaffargarh 97.31pc and Dera Ghazi Khan 97.15pc.

Backed by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) developed Exam Management System the results of over 2.5 million students who appeared in the two PEC exams were also published online, which in itself is a rare feat in a country which otherwise has a poor data regime.  

“PITB’s tier-III data centre and the result publishing system scaled to over 10 million hits in 3 hours on the result day. Our platform is designed to maintain high-availability and maintain automatic fail-over for such critical services,” said PITB Chairman Dr Umar Saif.