Chennai: Schools in Chennai district, across all categories, have marginally improved their performance in the academic year 2025-26. Data shared by the chief education office showed that schools run by the education department recorded a pass percentage of 89.94 for 2025-26, with 7,771 out of 8,649 students passing the exam, a jump from the 87.43% recorded in the previous academic year.A total of 4,778 out of 5,179 corporate school students passed, registering a pass percentage of 92.26, up from 88.12% recorded in 2024-25. As for the adi dravidar schools, 310 out of 376 students passed the test, with a passing percentage of 82.4 (compared to 82.14% recorded last year).In addition, subsidized schools recorded a passing percentage of 94.8 and private schools, 98%. “We jumped from 23rd to 20th in overall pass percentage and from 30th to 29th in performance of government schools (corporate, adi ravidar and education department run schools). As many as 170 out of 578 schools got 100% pass, and five of them were government schools,” said education director M. Kabir.A total of 270 students obtained centum in mathematics, history, biology, physics, chemistry, commerce, accounting and economics. Of them, 195 came from subsidized schools and 75 from public schools. Overall, the district recorded a passing percentage of 95.43 this year.Parents and teachers welcomed the improvement, but said there is still a long way to go. “There are still several districts ahead of us, even though Chennai has all the infrastructure facilities and resource centres. Even Ramanathapuram is ahead of us (12th rank). Ideally, we would like to find a place in the top five, but that has not happened in the last decade. There is a need for a periodic review and complete overhaul of the educational approach to improve in the rankings,” said S Arumainathan, president of TN Parents and Students Welfare Association.
