Getting an education appears to be all about performing in exams and the pressure is getting so bad that some students are crumbling under it. While most end up suffering from nerves during exams, a few feel so hopeless that they decide to end it all on impulse, often taking their parents and teachers by surprise.
Over the past couple of days five students have committed suicide in the city, which makes you wonder if it’s worth putting so much pressure on children to come out with sterling performances even if they are not up to delivering them.
“More children are taking their lives by the day because competition is increasing as is the pressure to perform,” agrees Dr C.R. Chandrashekar, professor of psychiatry at Nimhans.
While some may say exam pressure is unavoidable, it seems a rather heartless way of dealing with the problem when students are killing themselves over it. It makes more sense to dig deeper to find out where we are going wrong. Dr S.G. Muraliraj, HOD, psychiatry, Manipal Hospital believes the education system needs modification to ensure that pressure does not build up so much on the students that they give up entirely. “More importance must be given to acquiring knowledge than to scoring of marks,” he says.
Dr Chandrashekar feels that schools and colleges need to play an active role in ensuring that students are able to cope with the stress they are undergoing during this phase. “Student counselling should be seriously encouraged especially before and after exams are held,” he suggests, explaining that what the children need is emotional support at this time. “Simple things like sitting with the children a day before the result and helping them with the anticipatory stress can help a great deal,” he says.
While helplines exist to help students deal with exam stress, psychiatrists feel that they are not really effective. “It is actually very difficult to talk a person out of committing suicide over the phone. In fact 95 per cent of those with suicidal tendencies do not call helplines and make sure that no one gets to know that they are contemplating killing themselves,” says Dr Muraliraj.
What is important, however, is for parents and teachers to be more sensitive to the children’s needs and not push them beyond a point, say experts. “Maybe the introduction of a grading system will help,” feels Dr Muraliraj. While this may be a solution it is becoming obvious that those who are responsible for the children's welfare both at home and school need to do some soul searching to understand where they are going wrong and take corrective action before more students are driven to suicide simply because too much is expected of them.
