Delhi Private School Dubai hails UAE top scorer in CBSE results

The Dubai-based school is celebrating after learning one of its students is presumed to have one of the highest grades in the annual Grade 12 Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams in the UAE.

Vineet Nair, 17, celebrates his top-ranking performance in the CBSE science stream examinations with his mother, Kala. Satish Kumar / The National
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DUBAI // Delhi Private School Dubai is celebrating after learning one of its students is presumed to be among the high scorers in the annual Grade 12 Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams in the UAE.

The examination was given to CBSE curriculum students in March and is offered in one of three streams: science, commerce and humanities. Results were released in full on Thursday.

For Delhi Private School Dubai (DPSD), this is the first time one of its students has performed so well.

“Somehow or the other, we had not yet secured our UAE topper,” said Rachna Prakash, DPSD headmistress. “We are extremely proud. It’s a great sense of achievement and pride and, I mean, we are at the top of the world.”

Vineet Nair, 17, scored 98.2 per cent in the science stream, making him the presumed top performer in the country.

“I was shocked,” said Vineet, a Kerala native who lives in Dubai with his parents and twin brother, Visakh. “I was expecting good results, but not this great.”

His mother, Kala, said she expected nothing less from her high-achieving sons.

“They have worked hard, so I expected this.”

Although Visakh did not score as high as his brother, he still achieved an overall score of 95.2 in the science stream.

The high grades did not come naturally for the twins. They practised a strict study regimen that included tutoring three times a week for two and a half hours, and twice-daily enrichment classes. Vineet credited his teachers, his school and Knowledge Planet for helping him to ace the test.

“We used to come in at 6.30am, so one hour before school we used to practise higher-level questions and extra questions,” said Vineet, who will study mechanical engineering at the University of California in the autumn. “And then I just revise daily and then review past year’s papers. And my teachers at my school, they gave us papers with the feedback, extra classes, afternoon classes, morning classes. By the time we were done, we were very well prepared for the exams.”

The best advice he has for students who will be sitting the exam next March is to “get as much practice as you can”.

“That’s very key to doing well in the board examinations. Just keep regularly revising, at least in the core subjects, physics, chemistry and maths,” Vineet said. “There’s no point in being nervous, it doesn’t help you in any way whatsoever, because it only brings bad things. Don’t get nervous. Pray and do your best.”

Gems CBSE schools upheld their successful track record with a 100 per cent pass rate, according to a news release. Out of 1,163 students who wrote the exam, 21.6 per cent scored an average of 90 per cent. A total of 69.6 per cent of the students scored above 75 per cent and 98.3 per cent of students scored above 60 per cent.

“They’ve been gearing up to this for 14 years in their education, I mean this is the one that can qualify them for university and colleges, and what you’ll find about Indian students, without exception, all of them go to university, so a lot depends on the scores that they get on the Grade 12 level because that, then, determines where in the world they can go,” said Teresa Varman, headmistress at Our Own High School Al Warqa’a.

Indian High School Dubai is presumed to have the top scorers in the commerce and humanities streams, where Sachin Nair achieved a score of 97.6 per cent in commerce and Annalie Gracias earned 96.4 per cent in humanities.

“It is more gratifying for us educators to see our students win big. In their achievements lie our achievements. If they have successfully completed this milestone in life, we take pride in that. Their hard work has paid off and they have been worthy of success,” said the IHS chief executive, Dr Ashok Kumar.

Much like the American SAT or the British A Level, the scores from the Indian CBSE are used by universities as a factor in determining a student’s admission.

“It helps them to get a place in university, they need the result for that,” Mrs Prakash said.

“There are many students who sit for this exam, and it is a very rigorous exam. Its academic standards and expectations are very high.”

Students can view their results online at http://cbseresults.nic.in.

rpennington@thenational.ae