India's Killer School Exams.


It ain't much better in China except there is universal education for
eight years, now free, and there are more top class universities.

India's highlights:
1. it puts an undue emphasis on rote learning and passing exams with
a high percentage discounting creativity and personality development.
2. the student demographic - about 70% of India's 1.1 billion
population is under 30 years, a sizeable chunk of which are students -
leads to an enormous demand-supply gap. For instance, this year, over
1.3 million students are appearing for the Class X and XII Board exams
conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as
against the 1.2 million who appeared last year.
3. IIT-JEE (Joint Entrance Examination)... around 350,000 students
will compete for 5,000 seats.
4. Indian Institute of Management (IIM), .... 250,000 applicants,
only 1,200 manage to procure seats each year. ... even more selective
than all the top US business schools put together. ... overall
acceptance rate at IIM ranges between 0.1 to 0.4% compared with the
acceptance rate of around five to 10% in the top US schools.




Killing stress for India's best and brightest
Hundreds of recent student suicides attest to the sad truth that in
today's India, the pressure to excel can be lethal. Gargantuan numbers
of applicants face a maddening exam process for extremely limited
placement at the top-notch schools needed for lucrative careers. Add
to this intense family pressure, an outdated and under-funded
education system and a society in intense transition and it's all too
clear that many of India's young people are dying to succeed. - Neeta
Lal (Mar 19, '08)



Killing stress for India's best and brightest
By Neeta Lal
March 20, 2008
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JC20Df01.html


NEW DELHI - "I'll come back as a ghost to haunt my teachers," read the
suicide note of a teenaged Indian student who recently shot himself in
the head due to exam-linked stress. Another student - 16-year-old
Anita Naresh - quaffed a bottle of pesticide in the run-up to her
annual exams. More recently, Rajneesh Mittal, 17, created a national
kerfuffle by trying to kill himself inside an examination hall.

March is the year's most dreaded month for Indian students: it's exam
time and the pressure to excel can be lethal. This year, as many as
100 students have already committed suicide - in sometimes bizarre
situations - across the sub-continent, leaving the country, and
especially its parents, wondering whether the final deathly toll will
exceed the 2006 mark when a staggering 5,857 Indian students attempted
suicide due to exam blues, according to the National Crime Records
Bureau.

Disquietingly, those who aren't pushed to the brink still have to
grapple with acute anxiety and depression. Some are even led to
experiment with macabre stress-busting recipes. This year's "hot"
stress relievers, for instance, are broth made from lizard's body
parts, bread slices smeared with pain-relief ointments and shoe
polish, anti-epilepsy drugs, and the fumes of nail polish removers.

"Some students from the science stream are even making their own drugs
from chemicals and salts available in their school labs," said New
Delhi-based cardiologist Dr K K Agarwal, president of the Heart Care
Foundation of India, at a recent press conference in Delhi. Helping
the students in their quest for such life-threatening stress-busters,
says the doctor, are websites which give them a step-by-step recipes
for the concoctions.

According to clinical psychologist Dr Vedahi Bharati, there's an
urgent need for cyber laws which can vet these web portals. The expert
also proposes laws for parents, children, chemists and pharmaceutical
companies to stop the casual buying and selling of OTC (over the
counter) stress-relieving amphetamine drugs whose sales skyrocket
during the exam period.

Exam stress isn't a particularly new phenomenon on the Indian academic
landscape. Cases of depression and the stray suicide case have been
common for many years. But lately, the situation has acquired a new
gravitas with newspapers and TV channels reporting student suicides
nearly every day.

What's pushing today's Indian students - a bright generation with a
global reputation for their high intelligence quotient - to the brink?
Experts believe the problem is symptomatic of a deeper issues;
parental and peer pressure, rising ambitions and fierce competition
are brewing a deadly cocktail for these young minds. Moreover, a
nation racing towards affluence, an economy on a remarkable upward
growth trajectory and skyrocketing salaries are putting unprecedented
pressure on youth to succeed.

According to Delhi-based clinical psychologist Dr Veena Deb, "Parental
expectations have also risen enormously over the years which is
propelling these kids to breaking point." Deb feels that the changing
dynamics of the Indian family - particularly, the death of the joint
family system - means that there are fewer family elders around to
counsel the young. With both parents working, and nobody at home to
turn to in a crisis, it's easier for the youth to engage in high-risk
behavior.

Unsurprisingly, around March, it's common for student helplines,
resurrected by numerous voluntary organizations and non-governmental
organizations, to be inundated with distress calls. "Most students
feel relieved to be able to just pick up the phone and share their
fears with someone," said a volunteer at a New Delhi-based helpline
service. "It's a great catharsis for them and works like a salve for
their frazzled minds."

The volunteer said many callers complain about pushy parents and
recounted that last week a boy called in to ask where he could buy a
pistol to shoot his mother for nagging him too much.

Sanjeevini, an official from another crisis intervention center, said,
"An identity crisis, uncertainty regarding getting admission to the
courses of their choice in college and a fear of low marks sullying
their reputation are usually the main reasons for students attempting
to end their lives."

Apart from insecurity and societal change sweeping across India,
another big reason for student distress is the modern Indian education
system. Outdated and flab-ridden, it puts an undue emphasis on rote
learning and passing exams with a high percentage discounting
creativity and personality development.

Of course there's no denying that in India, the student demographic -
about 70% of India's 1.1 billion population is under 30 years, a
sizeable chunk of which are students - leads to an enormous
demand-supply gap. For instance, this year, over 1.3 million students
are appearing for the Class X and XII Board exams conducted by the
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as against the 1.2 million
who appeared last year.

These gargantuan numbers will create a mad scramble for the limited
number of seats available at the top-notch engineering, medical and
business schools that yield the most lucrative career options. For the
undergraduate B-Tech and M-Tech programs offered through IIT-JEE
(Joint Entrance Examination), for instance, around 350,000 students
will compete for 5,000 seats.

Similarly, for the blue-chip Indian Institute of Management (IIM),
from a large pool of about 250,000 applicants, only 1,200 manage to
procure seats each year. This makes the exam even more selective than
all the top US business schools put together. In fact the overall
acceptance rate at IIM ranges between 0.1 to 0.4% compared with the
acceptance rate of around five to 10% in the top US schools.

Keeping this severe crunch in mind, proponents of a better education
system have often criticized the Indian government's frugal
expenditure on education. According to the Kothari Commission set up
in 1966, which put forward the blueprint for reform of the Indian
education system, the central expenditure on education should be a
minimum of 6% of gross domestic product (GDP). However, India's
current figure hovers around 4%, far less than Saudi Arabia which
invests 9.5% of its GDP in education and Norway, Malaysia, France and
South Africa all of who spend in excess of 5%.

Apart from insufficient funding, many feel the entire Indian education
system needs a revamp as it is based on an archaic template
established by the British in the 19th century. Sporadic attempts by
the Central Board of Secondary Education to relax admission criteria
and make the exam system more student-friendly, have been brushed
aside by critics as feeble sideshows, not really targeted at tackling
the root of the problem.

All this is a pity considering India, the world's largest democracy,
is increasingly viewed as a strong global player due to its exploding
economic growth and enviable human resource wealth. If Delhi refuses
to do anything about the future of India's young people - many of whom
are literally killing themselves over academic pressure - it ought to
be a matter of national shame.

New Delhi-based independent journalist Neeta Lal has had her work
published in over 70 publications across 20 countries .

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