Traditionally, girls have always performed better than boys in the Class XII examinations. This year too was no different. Both in the number of toppers in the State, and Chennai, as well as in terms of the pass percentage, girls were way ahead of boys.

This year, the State toppers, both with Tamil as language and other languages, were all girls. In the top three ranks in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur, only one boy finds a place: C. Mohanraj from Velammal Matric Higher Secondary School, Panchetti.

Of the total number of students who appeared for the examination in the State, girls comprised over 50 per cent, with 4,50,408 girls and 3,88,883 boys appearing. The pass percentage, too, was better among the former, with 93.4 per cent of the girls who appeared for the examinations passing. 87.5 per cent of the boys passed the examination.

The trend was similar last year too, with the pass percentage among girls being the same, while 87.4 per cent of the boys passed the examination.

Experts, however, say that while girls do better in the examination, fewer among them take up professional courses, and even fewer continue to remain in the workforce. According to Saundarya Rajesh, founder – president, AVTAR Career Creators & FLEXI Careers India, while over half the students taking Class XII examinations are girls, only around 36 per cent take up professional courses like engineering, medicine or law. While around 30 per cent take up the commerce group, only 15 per cent go on to pursue a professional chartered accountancy course.

“When it comes to jobs, too, girls take up around 47 per cent of the entry-level jobs from engineering colleges, but in the first year of working, around 35 per cent of the women drop off. Women’s workforce participation in India is only 23-24%,” she said.