Children falling prey to Percentage Race!

Aditi Panda

It’s high time we stop pressurising our children and give more significance to doable accomplishments than making them exam-machines.

“Eat fast. Shut the TV and start studying. Why are you still on the phone? How much will you sleep? Stop wasting time, Preeti aunt’s Medha studies for 20 hours every day and you only 19. You start studying immediately or will call up Papa.” – A hundred reprimands from the over apprehensive mother who keeps on pestering her son or daughter appearing for his/her board exams.

The sad part is that it is not just the enormous syllabus, academic pressure and long studying hours that create strain on both students as well as parents, but it occasionally coerces many to commit suicide, especially after the declaration of board exam results.

What makes things worse during this stage is the tendency of family members to tell the stressed student to “ignore everything else and focus on studies.” Juggling between special classes and tuitions and revising the same chapters is actually wasting time. It’s only studying for that three hour examination with the aim of scoring full marks.

“A student’s ability should be judged with the knowledge she/he has gained and not his marks”, said Shubham Mishra who passed his secondary exams with excellent grades.

“Speaking candidly there is a barely any student who does not go through this crucial phase but if the parents are child-friendly the stress on the student decreases to a large extent.” says Sidharth Rath, presently doing plus 3 in Liberal Arts.

“Parents should leave it to their children to decide what they want in life and stop comparing performance with others. Every child must be allowed to pursue her/his dreams. Parents should be supportive and not prescriptive”, Sidharth narrates further.

The scenario is identical all over India as the competition is huge and the mental pressure on students is even more. It’s a trying time for both the parents and their children amidst the declared results of the ICSE, CBSE and state board exams which will decide the future of the students.

“The just-declared CBSE and other Board results reveal the illogicality of our education system. It’s almost bizarre that students are securing almost-perfect scores and on the other hand, a major percentage of them cannot get admissions in the right college and right area of interest”, said the hassled parents of Sikata, Mrs. Sarita and Mr. Sushil Mahapatra , who will be appearing for her CBSE exams next year.

“As parents we invest so much time and money to ensure a secure future for our children and that is the rationale behind the constant hammering and nagging”, Mrs. Sarita and Mr. Sushil added.

It’s high time we stop pressurising our children and give more significance to doable accomplishments.

(Aditi is a freelance writer and pursues interest in the area of social issues)