KARACHI, July 31: Girls outshone boys in the SSC-II (Science) annual examination 2007 results, which were announced by the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi (BSEK) on Tuesday.

Sana Pasha, daughter of Anwar Pasha, a student of Falcon House Grammar School, North Karachi, secured 809 out of 850 marks with a staggering 95.18 percentage and clinched the top position among the total of 101,519 candidates who had appeared in the examinations concluded in early July.

Tooba Anwar, daughter of Mohammad Anwar, of Lady Bird Grammar School, North Nazimabad, with 793 marks bagged the second position. She was followed by three candidates sharing the third position: Mohammad Hasan Khan, son of Shujaatullah Khan, of Chiniot Islamia Public School; Ashba Mushtaque, daughter of Mushtaque Ahmed, of the Karachi Public School; and Nisha Usmani, daughter of Qaiser Taslim Usmani, of White House Grammar School. They all got 790 marks out of 850 marks.

According to the statistics released by the BSEK, a total of 102,551 candidates were registered for the exams and 98 per cent of the candidates appeared in the exams out of which 79,996 were declared successful.

As many as 10,202 candidates secured A-1 grade, while 17,594 got A-grade; 20,640 bracketed in B-grade; 20,015 got C-grade; 10,722 secured D-grade and 657 were placed in E-grade. The overall pass percentage remained 78.8.

Dawn received various complaints from the candidates belonging to different schools of the city accusing the BSEK officials of showing complacency in compiling the results, due to which a significant number of the candidates were shown absent in some papers although they had duly attended and taken the examinations.

A number of candidates complained of such irregularity mostly in mathematics paper. When contacted, a senior board official said that it might be a ‘human error’ on the part of the examiners.

“Anyone who has such complaints should visit the Board office to get it checked out,” he said.

Besides, the BSEK had added two per cent grace marks to the total marks obtained by each candidate. Thus, it has improved the overall percentage.

All other boards of Sindh, including the BIEK, are adding marks to the total marks obtained in each paper. As a token of concession, the Sindh governor had ordered all the provincial educational boards to add two per cent grace marks to the marks obtained by all the candidates who could not properly prepare for their exams due to rains and prolonged electricity failures.