Mohali, May 12 -- Two girls and a boy clinched the top three positions in the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) Class 10 examination for the March 2026 regular session, according to the results declared in Mohali on Monday. Girls once again stole the spotlight, with a staggering 220 girls featuring among the 272 students on the state merit list. Harleen Sharma of Saraswati Senior Secondary School, Jaito in Faridkot, emerged as the state topper with a score of 646 out of 650, achieving 99.38%. The second and third positions were bagged by Manimahesh Sharma of Government Senior Secondary School, Rupnagar, and Riya Rani of Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School, Hoshiarpur, respectively. Both students secured identical scores of 645 marks (99.23%). State topper Harleen is the daughter of Jaswinder Kumar, a farmer, and Renu Bala, a homemaker. She has chosen humanities in Class 11 and aims to study law to become a judge. Sharing her success mantra, she said she studied six hours a day without any tuitions, and played squash to de-stress, while staying away from smartphone. Manimahesh's father Vijay Kumar Sharma teaches Punjabi at his school, while his mother, Monica Sharma, is an SST teacher at Government High School, Saskaur. His sights set on becoming an IPS officer, he attributes a strict timetable, with focus and consistency, behind his success. Along with excelling in the Class 10 board examinations, he also topped Punjab in the Meritorious School entrance examination by scoring 132 out of 150 marks. Aspiring to become a biology teacher, Ria Rani says she relied on self-study, with a regular routine. Announcing the results in Mohali on Monday, PSEB chairman Amarpal Singh said a total of 2,69,505 students appeared in the Class 10 examinations this year and 2,54,744 passed, making the overall pass percentage 94.52% - a marginal decline from last year's 95.61%. Girls continued to outperform boys, recording a pass percentage of 95.96%, compared with 93.23% among boys. Transgender students secured a 100% result, with all six passing the exams. One of the most strikingtrends this year was the exceptional performance of students from rural areas, who surpassed their urban counterparts by a significant margin. Rural areas recorded a pass percentage of 95.35%, while urban areas registered 92.98% - an edge of 2.4%. According to board data, 1,74,958 rural students appeared in the examinations and 1,66,830 passed. In contrast, 94,547 students from urban areas appeared, of whom 87,914 cleared the examinations. Private schools continued to hold a slight edge over government institutions in terms of pass percentage. Private schools recorded a success rate of 95.97%, while government schools achieved 94.45%, narrowing the performance gap considerably compared to previous years. Among the districts, Amritsar secured the highest pass percentage of 98.41%. Ferozepur followed closely at 98.39%, while Pathankot secured 97.99%, Tarn Taran 97.95% and Gurdaspur 97.84%. At the other end of the spectrum, Ludhiana recorded the lowest pass percentage in the state at 89.20%. Subject-wise, Punjabi had the highest pass percentage at 99.31% among the six main subjects followed by Hindi (99.70%), mathematics (98.70%), social studies (98.66%), science (98.18%) and English (97.71%). Celebrations erupted across schools following the declaration of results, with students, teachers and parents gathering to mark the achievement. Congratulating the students, Punjab education minister Harjot Singh Bains said the results were a strong endorsement of the state government's ongoing education reforms, when the rural students had outperformed their urban counterparts. He said the rural-urban gap of more than 2.4 percentage points marked a major reversal of previous trends, where urban schools typically outperformed rural institutions. "The results show that focused investment in school infrastructure, teacher training and academic mentoring is yielding results on the ground," Bains said, adding that it was not just a result sheet, it was a report card of the government that believed in opportunity, not privilege....