Mysuru: In an embarrassing situation for Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait and also Chief Minister Siddharamaiah, their home district of Mysuru has slipped from the top positions in both Second PU and SSLC results. Mysuru’s overall position in the State has slipped from 8th to 21st place in the SSLC results and it slipped to the 14th from 11th place in PUC results.

This time, the overall pass percentage in SSLC is 72.03. In 2016, the district was in the eighth place with 85.85%. Out of 39,323 students only 27,314 students have passed. A total of 25 schools have secured 100% results. Mysuru rural registered a pass percentage of 56.03, Mysuru urban has secured 43.97%.

Deputy Director of Public Instruction (DDPI) H.R. Basappa told reporters that SSLC results were disappointing despite the best efforts of the department. He said the pass percentage dropped below expectations. He said the overall pass percentage of the district was 72%.

Basappa said that shortage of teaching staff resulted in poor performance. There is a requirement of 336 guest faculty in Mysuru and only 98 are working from November 2016. “We had taken many steps including remedial teaching, special classes for average students, group discussions to boost the morale of students, preparatory examinations and question banks. Despite this, the pass percentage plummeted,” he said.

The department plans to convene a meeting of heads of the schools and teachers to discuss the reasons for the district’s poor performance and find solutions to the same besides revisiting the methodology adopted for improving the performance next year.

It may be recalled here that the Zilla Panchayat and the Education department had devised a 25-point programme ‘Mysuru Guri Nooru’, to prepare the students for the examinations.