The school's tin roof leaks during the monsoon and during summer months heats up, making the rooms unbearably hot. The school has no library, laboratories or big playground. And this is Namuna English Medium School in Jhapa, where Anjana Rajbansi spent 11 years. Had the government not decided to scrap the 'board first' announcement this year, Rajbansi, who earned 92.38 percent in the SLC exam, would have been the topper.

Anjana grew up in Juropani in south-west Jhapa, in a family of five. Her parents, both primary school teachers at a government school, encouraged her to work hard and never settle for second best. Anjana makes it all sound easy. To do well on a national exam, she says, "you have to work hard, have the drive to succeed and be very ambitious. Also, you need to study for a few hours everyday, concentrate and be very disciplined."

"We were encouraged to use our imagination, to work with what we have, and all 12 of us from my class who took the SLC exam this year passed with good scores," says Anjana, who believes that as long as the teachers are good at what they do and encourage students to question, labs, libraries and other physical facilities are secondary. Anjana sounds wise beyond her years when she says, "It makes no difference to me if I am 'board first' or not. My scores reflect my hard work, and I am very happy with that."

For Anjana, the story is just beginning. She was encouraged by her teachers in Jhapa to think of the SLC as just a stepping stone to bigger and better things. "I was encouraged to do well, not pressured to be the best." She now studies in the science faculty at Universal College in Kathmandu, and wants to later pursue Biology. She's here on a scholarship, and says her college administration has also promised her a scholarship to study medicine, if she keeps her grades up. This bright spark is thrilled. "I was taught to work hard and not expect things in return, so any small encouragement means a lot to me," she says.

In some ways, though, Anjana Rajbansi is just another teenager-she doesn't want to make long-term plans just yet. "Let me do well in plus-two first, then I can think about what to do next," she smiles.

She does believes, though, that if an SLC topper had been announced, it would have not been her, but another student, from Kathmandu.