And Then You Wonder...

Every year between the months of March and June board exams are conducted and results are declared. Every year between the months of March and June Mumbai is assailed with a spate of suicides within the age range of 15-17 yrs. Every year between March and June psychologists in Mumbai have a field day spouting their expert opinions on stress, pressure, competition, parenting, and everything under the sun that can get them a couple of inches in Bombay Times or better yet, 5 minutes of fame on the telly.

Every year people wonder why these suicides happen. Teachers in the staffroom talk about how parents pressurise the children to perform beyond their capacities. Parents in the corridors talk about how schools want children to improve their result stats. Everyone talks of the system being faulty. Like that ever helped anyone…least of all the students.

The papers in the last few days have been full of admission woes. A huge chunk of the admission seekers had their total percentages hiked by a full 4 percent (and 4 percent is hu-uge when seats are got based on a couple of decimal points) allegedly in order to keep up with the higher average percentage offered by other examination boards. The move was such a quick execution that one wonders at the speed at which the whole thing was done and if it wasn’t already expected by those who matter in such things.

Then there are top colleges in the city that are offering open admission to students who went to the right school. I don’t think it is a coincidence that both educational institutes are run by the same trust and that one of them is a new body looking to enrol more students.
(The repercussions of this one will directly affect preschool admissions as parents will scramble to get their toddler into the right school and thus the cycle begins as soon as the child is able to tell you that he wants to go potty.)

And then there is the usual advantage gotten of belonging to the right ‘community’ – that which runs its own educational institute, or of knowing the right people, or of having the right parents (with the right bank balance preferably).

The only thing today that is not an advantage is a high score.

When a student with a total percentage of 94% fails to secure a seat in college of his choice it’s only natural that he will question it all – the work he put in over several months, the sacrifices he made, the naïve trust he had in hard work being the key to success. It is only natural that he will question his own confidence, esteem and worth. It isn’t unnatural that he be driven to doing something drastic.

And then you wonder…