The Silent Crisis in Our Classrooms, When Marks Become a Matter of Life and Death

The Silent Crisis in Our Classrooms, When Marks Become a Matter of Life and Death

The annual ritual of board exam results in India is a national spectacle of extreme emotions. For some, it is a moment of euphoric validation; for many, it is a period of anxious disappointment; and for a tragically consistent few, it becomes the catalyst for an irreversible decision. As Syeda Afshana poignantly notes from Kashmir, while some homes celebrate, others are shrouded in a silence that speaks of unbearable pressure—a pressure that, in the most devastating cases, “turns fatal.” This stark reality exposes a profound and systemic crisis in Indian education and parenting: the catastrophic conflation of academic marks with human worth, and the failure to create ecosystems where children can safely stumble, learn, and grow.

The question “Do Marks Matter?” is not academic; it is urgent and life-affecting. The answer, within the current framework, is a resounding and dangerous “yes,” but for all the wrong reasons. Marks matter not as a measure of learning, curiosity, or potential, but as a brutal currency of social approval, familial honor, and perceived future security. This distorted significance transforms the education system from a garden of exploration into a gladiatorial arena where only the top percentile survive emotionally intact, while the rest are left to grapple with feelings of inadequacy, shame, and, in extreme instances, a sense of hopelessness so profound it leads to self-harm.

The Anatomy of Pressure: From Disappointment to Despair

The pressure on students is a multi-headed hydra, fed by a complex mix of parental anxiety, societal comparison, and institutional glorification of toppers. As Afshana observes, the pressure “does not always come through shouting.” Often, it is more insidious and psychologically corrosive: the heavy sigh of a parent, the silent treatment, the loaded question (“What will your uncle think?”), or the constant benchmark against a more “successful” cousin. Children are astute emotional barometers; they interpret these signals not as concern, but as conditional love. Their worth becomes transactional, dependent on a percentage point. The message internalized is devastating: “I am loved and valuable only if I score above 90%.”

This conditioning is amplified exponentially by schools and coaching institutes, which have turned high scores into a lucrative marketing commodity. The practice of plastering toppers’ faces on hoardings, in newspapers, and across social media is not just celebration; it is a pervasive, unspoken curriculum that teaches every other student a lesson in hierarchy. It “equates human worth with marks, silently telling every other child that they matter less.” This public spectacle of success erases the narrative of struggle, resilience, and diverse intelligence, creating a monolithic and unforgiving definition of achievement.

The consequences are visible in counselor’s offices and hospital emergency rooms every result season: children locked in rooms, refusing food, consumed by terror at facing their parents, or suffering panic attacks. In the most tragic outcomes, this acute stress manifests in suicide attempts—a final, desperate act by a young person who has come to believe, as Afshana writes, that “one number has cancelled the future.” It is crucial to understand that these are not acts of cowardice, but of profound despair from individuals who feel utterly cornered, with no safe space to express failure or fear.

The Systemic Failure: Education as Survival, Not Exploration

Beneath this psychological crisis lies a foundational rot in the pedagogical approach itself. The modern Indian education system, particularly in its high-stakes secondary years, has largely abandoned the ethos of learning for understanding. Afshana laments that “conceptual understanding is gradually disappearing from classrooms.” In its place reigns rote memorization—a mechanical process of “memorize, reproduce, forget.”

This system does not reward curiosity, critical questioning, or creative application. It punishes mistakes, which are the essential stepping stones of genuine learning. Consequently, education is stripped of its joy and transformed into a grim exercise in survival. Students are not explorers charting the realms of knowledge; they are tactical performers navigating a minefield of predictable questions. They sense the “emptiness behind the race,” leading to disconnection, disengagement, and a cynical view of the entire learning process. When marks are divorced from meaningful understanding, they become hollow idols, worshipped fervently by the system but offering no spiritual or intellectual nourishment to the learner.

This misplaced priority in education cultivates what Afshana identifies as a dangerous societal product: “intelligent minds with little wisdom” and “skilled professionals with fragile inner lives.” We are producing a generation that can solve complex equations but cannot navigate the complexities of disappointment, that can code sophisticated algorithms but lacks the emotional algorithm to process failure. By defining success solely as achievement, we render failure a terrifying, identity-shattering catastrophe rather than a natural, instructive part of the human experience.

Charting a Path Forward: From Data to Destiny, From Fear to Hope

Addressing this crisis requires a fundamental reorientation at every level—parental, pedagogical, and societal. It begins with a collective reframing of the narrative: Marks are data, not destiny. A low score is feedback, not a verdict.

1. The Parental Pivot: Families must become bastions of “emotional safety first.” This means consciously decoupling love from performance. The primary question after results should shift from “How much did you score?” to “How are you feeling?” Parents must learn to listen without immediately judging or problem-solving, and to affirm the child’s inherent worth irrespective of a mark sheet. They must resist the toxic impulse to “live through their children,” recognizing that each child has a “different rhythm, a different timeline, a different path.” The goal is to raise resilient, adaptable humans, not just high-scoring students.

2. The Pedagogical Reformation: Schools and examination boards bear a heavy responsibility. The cult of the topper must end. Assessment systems need a complete overhaul to move beyond the tyranny of the one-shot, high-stakes board exam. Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), in its true spirit, needs revitalization to assess a wider range of skills—critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity. Learning must be restored to its core purposes: understanding, application, and the creation of meaning. Classrooms need to become spaces where questions are celebrated more than answers, and where mistakes are analyzed as learning opportunities, not penalized as failures.

3. The Societal Shift: We must collectively broaden our definition of success. Celebrations in the media and community should spotlight not just the academic topper, but the artist, the sportsperson, the community volunteer, the resilient student who overcame significant adversity. Counseling and mental health support must be destigmatized and integrated seamlessly into school ecosystems, available proactively, not just reactively after a tragedy.

Conclusion: Protecting Our Children, Redefining Education

The tragic stories that emerge every result season are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a system in deep distress. Syeda Afshana’s heartfelt column from Kashmir holds a mirror to a national malaise. When a child’s silence, tears, or life is the price paid for a percentage, we have failed in the most basic duty of education and parenting.

True education, as Afshana reminds us, should “open minds, not close doors. It should offer hope, not fear. And above all, it should protect children.” It is time to dismantle the altar upon which we sacrifice our children’s well-being for the false god of marks. We must build an ecosystem where a child is seen as a whole person—with unique strengths, vulnerabilities, and potential—not reduced to a rank on a list. The future of our society depends not on a generation that scored the highest, but on a generation that is emotionally intelligent, ethically grounded, resilient, and capable of thinking for itself. The journey begins by answering the question “Do marks matter?” with a wiser, more humane, and ultimately life-affirming “No, not like this.”

Q&A: The Marks, Pressure, and Mental Health Crisis

Q1: According to the article, how does parental pressure often manifest beyond obvious shouting or anger?
A1: The article highlights that the most damaging pressure is often non-verbal and psychological. It manifests through expressions of disappointment, prolonged silence, invidious comparisons (“Your cousin scored more”), and anxiety-laden questions about societal perception (“What will people say?”). Children interpret these not as concern, but as conditional love, internalizing the idea that their worth and their parents’ affection are contingent upon achieving a specific numerical score.

Q2: What role do schools and tuition centers play in exacerbating the mental health crisis around exam results?
A2: They play a significant role by actively glorifying toppers through commercialized promotion—putting their photos on hoardings, in newspapers, and on social media. This practice creates a toxic culture of public comparison that implicitly equates high marks with supreme human value. It sends a devastating message to every other student that they are less important, erasing the reality of struggle and shamefies diverse intelligences and paths. It turns education into a public performance of ranking rather than a private journey of learning.

Q3: Why does the author argue that the current education system leads to “intelligent minds with little wisdom”?
A3: The author argues that the system has prioritized rote memorization and exam performance over conceptual understanding and critical thinking. Students are trained to “memorize, reproduce, forget” in a high-stakes, mistake-averse environment. This produces individuals who may be technically proficient or skilled at test-taking (intelligent minds) but lack the emotional resilience, ethical grounding, and adaptive thinking (wisdom) necessary to navigate life’s inevitable failures and complexities. The system cultivates fragility by making academic failure seem catastrophic.

Q4: What is the fundamental shift in perspective that the article recommends for parents and society?
A4: The article advocates for a foundational shift from viewing marks as “destiny” to seeing them as “data” or “feedback.” It urges parents to prioritize creating “emotional safety” over imposing expectations. This involves asking children how they feel before asking how they performed, listening without judgment, and unconditionally affirming their worth. Societally, it calls for broadening the definition of success beyond academic rankings to include artistry, resilience, character, and diverse forms of achievement.

Q5: What concrete steps can the education system take to alleviate this crisis, according to the analysis?
A5: The system must undertake several key reforms:

• Revamp Assessment: Move away from the single, make-or-break board exam model toward continuous, comprehensive evaluation that measures a wider range of skills and understanding.

• End Topper Glorification: Stop the commercial and public relations practice of publicly ranking and celebrating only the highest scorers.

• Restore Pedagogy: Focus classrooms on fostering curiosity, understanding, and the application of knowledge. Encourage questions and treat mistakes as vital learning tools, not failures.

• Integrate Support: Proactively embed accessible, destigmatized mental health counseling and emotional wellness programs into the school environment to support students before crises occur.