We are lately observing some very painful news like – Latest Rayan school case, in which a student of class 11 killed his junior Pradhyumn Thakur just to postpone the exams (reference: Times of India) or Sudhanshu Pandey a student of Class XI at DPS-Noida hanged himself to death from the ceiling fan. Students ending their life and finding death as an easy option than giving exams. Every day at an average 6.23 students commit suicide due to the peer pressure. There must be something wrong that we are not understanding. Why are students under so much stress and fear of exams? You can observe many such sad episodes in the given reference: Killer Exams, March 28, 2005 India Today online Magazine. Link: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/growing-number-of-students-commits-suicide-over-exams/1/194023.html.

I am an educationist and have been teaching, class nursery to class 11 since 12 years. Before that I was working in vocational training Institute Arena Multimedia. I have spent a portion of my life with students, sharing their difficulties and problems of life. I am also mother of two kids, studying in 11^th standard and 8^th standard, and have observed many facts from the life of students. Every year I come across around 600 students. According to me, none of them were of criminal attitude. I am not saying they can’t commit crime. In fact, they can easily commit it, in pressure and circumstances.

These students are not criminal by birth, let us see the root cause. I believe some faults in planning the education system and curriculum are leading to such activities. We are still working on it to make it perfect but sometimes experiments fail and it is high time to make some corrections.

The Education at the school level faces many difficult tracks especially at the time of transection from 10^th to 11^th. Even good and bright students feel demotivated and depressed. Why students are not able to cope-up with the syllabus jump? These all factors led students towards frustration and depression. Students have to prepare for board exams and at the same time for the entrances of competitions for the professional colleges. All the Science students get themselves enrolled to some professional institute to prepare for the entrances exams (medical, engineering etc.)  As preparation for both the exams is altogether different, board exams are theoretical and entrances exams are based on MCQs only. So, they are struggling to complete school projects, homework and tests and also studying for test series in coaching institutes. Don’t you think this is too much for a growing teenager? But what to do? This is the only path left for success in life. 

Some questions to analyse the problem and to find out a solution.

Q1. Why the syllabus is not evenly distributed and there is a big gap between 10 class and 11 class?

Q2. Why even a class 10^th student with 10 CGPA are not able to perform well in 11^th class?

Q3. Why do students have to prepare separately for board exams and entrances exams at the same time?

Someone can say it is not just about studies, it is a value system. Kids now a days don’t have that values. There is a saying “values are to be caught not to be taught”. And it is very true. Kids catch the values from the very beginning by watching, listing and observing.  I remember when I was a student, up till class 8th, I use to have one subject called moral science. In this subject we use to read stories which gave us some teaching and sensitized us towards human values. Now a days no such subject is included in the curriculum. Even teachers are so tied up with their syllabus completion that they hardly get time to talk about human values with the students. Parents also don’t have time and the environment is filled with corruption and errors. So children are learning what they are observing. There is no one to correct them. Social media and exposer have made things worse. There is everything available on internet, in approach of kids. There is no one to watch whether they are choosing good or bad things from there.

I know CBSE has taken up a Value Education programme from class 6. I think it is too late, this program should be from the binging of the education or introduce moral science as a subject so one period get dedicated towards value addition in the students life at least in a week. And it should not be optional.  

I have observed and studied some of the basic problems which students are suffering from, and I would like to give some suggestions.

1. It is always good to prepare in small portions and to prepare students from the start. According to me there should be a test after completion of every chapter in all the subjects, 5th class onwards. And if student is not able to do well, give him second chance to perform.
2. Decide the syllabus of 11^th and 12^th and distribute the topics evenly from 6^th class onwards, so that the ground work can be prepared and students already know the foundation concepts of the syllabus. We should not put all the burden altogether in senior secondary school. The gap between class 10 and class 11 has to be bridged up.
3. Students should not be preparing for the board exams and entrance exams separately. We should have the same pattern for board and entrance exams.
4. My observation is that science stream students are most stressed and depressed. It will be good if there is a flexibility in choosing combination of subjects.
   1. English/Hindi should be compulsory as we want our students of English medium to be well groomed for international market and our Hindi medium students to have effective communication skills, for local market.
   2. Maths and Physics makes a complete combination and Biology and Chemistry makes a complete combination. There is no need to force maths students to take chemistry and Biology students to take Physics. If they require it for their future prospect, they can take it as optional subject. I have observed mostly biology students are good in memorizing and maths students with logics, so make study easy for students. let us not pressurise students to perform in areas, which is not even required for future. Accordingly we can work for commerce and humanities streams.
   3. Two more optional subject will give them choice of career. It will dissolve stress from their mind and relax them with easier choice.
   4. These subject choices are available in most of the countries outside India.