34 ms·

In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

• a_d 9y ago
  I am from Kota - the city mentioned in this article as the epicenter of this crisis. India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 [1]. Kota has seen an extremely large influx of young students over the last decade. Roughly 200,000 [2] students come to live in this city to study for college entrance exam. Now, while the high-pressure exams are a problem and there are a complex set of contributing factors that make the exams "high pressure" - social norms, lottery-ticket-out-of-middle-class-mindset, lack of other options, population, demographics (large number of young people) etc. - but the article is trying to make a link between the high pressure exam and suicides, that seems a bit problematic to me. This exam has existed for more than 50 years, and has always been very hard and high pressure. This article states that "from the start of 2014 to November 2017, 45 Kota students committed suicide". Please make up your mind about the facts, but it seems like lazy journalism and a stretch to make the connection between the exam and suicides without accounting for deviations from per capita rates. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_India [2] https://www.quora.com/How-many-students-are-in-Kota https://www.quora.com/How-many-students-are-in-Kota
  • lozenge 9y ago
    India's population has boomed in 50 years but has the number of available places at prestigious institutions boomed with it?
    • rakamotog 9y ago
      Yes! Exponentially in last 10 years. When I took the exam a rank of 2.5 k was almost equal to not getting a rank. But now a rank of 10k has better opportunities! Colleges mushroomed from 6 to 23!
      • devang1994 9y ago
        Getting CS at Bombay, Kanpur, Delhi, Madras etc still requires a rank under 500 or so. Correct me if I am wrong but all the headline grabbing salaries are still restricted to these courses and institutes.
        • pycassa 9y ago
          No way rank around 500 gives you CS in those colleges. Mine is 595 and did electrical engineering in Kharagpur. Electrical engineering is after CS and EC. Basically Your rank decides what institute and what branch you will be graduating in. Even though Kharagpur is on par with the institutes you mentioned, people don't prefer it as it's not in a metro City.
        • rakamotog 8y ago
          Not exactly. CS in tier 2 IIT's also gets you those headlines. Basically the numbers decrease (1 from IIT Hyderabad vs 5+ from IIT B IMO)
    • trinkletingas 9y ago
      No.
    • intended 9y ago
      India’s pop has been booming for more than 50 years, and we only got independence recently enough that institution building is measured in less than 100 years (to be fair many old colleges exist with older roots, but for the sake of comparison with the entire population, they are a drop in the bucket.) Unfortunately time is not on our side, as it takes a long time to make institutions and good institutional habits. To compound the problem- for most of 50 years there was huge bran drain. All those people who would become professors, or experts used their English advantage to move abroad and use their talents better. Not to mention the years lost due to license raj. I’d say things are slowly working out and improving. Whether it’s in time to help the demographics, I don’t know.
      • BeetleB 9y ago
        Sorry - beg to differ. 70 years is plenty of time to form good institutions. Having lived in multiple countries, it is often clear to me that the reason for any country's woes almost always stems from their culture. Things may be different now, but historically Indian culture valued credentials and degrees a lot more than they did gaining knowledge. And many aspects of culture interfere with education. India is a country where relationships matter a lot more than, say, in the US. Part of that dynamic is the pressure to do favors for each other. This can be a huge problem when trying to objectively measure performance. I know a teacher in a 3rd world country who was given a hard time by society for not going easy on a student who happened to be a child of a relative. Stuff like that. Culture is hard to change. Another example from another comment here: The fact that many students go to school, expect to learn little, and then spend hours with a tutor after school. I've spoken to parents from similar countries who: 1. Viewed the fact that their kids had tutors as a status symbol (clear barrier to change!) 2. Seriously could not comprehend the notion that teachers are supposed to teach well enough that going to a tutoring academy would not be required. I kid you not - quite a few refused to believe I was a top student and did not have a private tutor, and that my school had top teachers. For them, that's simply not how the world works. With the right culture, you can build great institutions in a lot less than 70 years. But examples like the above are examples of a culture getting in the way of institution building, and you end up clashing with the culture at every step.
  • shubhamjain 9y ago
    I am from Kota too and your argument is just nit-picking. Of course, when you're blaming high-pressure exams, you're also blaming every factor related to it. Your analysis of suicide rates fails to consider that these are very young students barely in the age group of 15-19 and the cause is singular (high-pressure parenting). But suicide rate is just one symptom that this industry engenders. The immense pressure these kids are subject to is depressing as fuck. They (and their parents) all have been fed the dream that working 15 hours/day is a sure-shot way to make it in. And once you make in IIT, you don't have to fret about anything else. Some kids have been working towards this dream, right from 6-7th grade. Yes! six years before they are to take the actual exam. I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it. Looking back, it just escapes me how so many people can come to believe that a single exam is going to narrate your whole fate in life.
    • chii 9y ago
      > I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it. so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people?
      • shubhamjain 9y ago
        > so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people? Theoretically, it can be replicated. The tools that I have used to learn everything are accessible to most of the people I have met. But, whatever may be the reasons, it just doesn't happen.
        • devang1994 9y ago
          I am very curious what are these tools you talk about? I am often asked by students at my old high school about what they can do if they dont want to study for JEE and I havent really been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.
        • 9y ago
  • intended 9y ago
    India and the other countries which have this exam system have suicides. India just doesn’t have the reporting or data to showcase it. This will improve over time and the scope of it will be clear.
  • DanBC 9y ago
    > India's annual suicide rate is 10.5 per 100,000 people, while the suicide rate for the world as a whole is 11.6 per 100,000 You need a little bit of caution here. It's very difficult to compare rates of death with other countries because there are different definitions for suicide, and different levels of recording and reporting. In particular, there are problems in some areas of India of under recording deaths. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090536X13000245 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090536X1... > In the last two decades, the suicide rate has increased from 7.9 to 10.3 per 100,000,8 with very high rates in some southern regions.9 In a study published in The Lancet in June 2012, the estimated number of suicides in India in 2010 was about 187,000.10 According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB); state of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have registered a consistently higher number of suicidal deaths during the last few years and together accounted for 56.2% of the total suicides reported in the country. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state (16.5% share of the population) has reported a comparatively lower percentage of suicidal deaths, accounting for only 3.6% of the total suicides reported in this country, but this researcher feels that this is due to the underestimation of suicide cases in this area. There is a general agreement that previous statistics on the incidence of suicide in the Lucknow region were grossly inadequate and that their comparison based on the figures available is inaccurate and misleading. This causes the suicide problem to be underestimated and, thus, neglected by the government, although this problem seems to be universal. In addition, the features of deaths due to suicide are changing constantly, revealing complex social and cultural developments.11 Prichard and Amanullah (2007)12 suggested that, to avoid the under-reporting of suicides, both formal suicide verdicts and other violent deaths should be considered together because the other violent deaths may include hidden suicides.
• llarsson 9y ago
  Notice how large percentage of the article was about a stupid fan, whose main feature is falling off the ceiling, rather than about the actual topic you clicked on the article for.
  • magic_beans 9y ago
    “Ashani is candid about his struggles to get his Smart Fan into circulation.” This whole article exists for this one pun. But you’re right — this seems to be a marketing article for this silly fan.
  • SyneRyder 9y ago
    I did a quick count: 6 paragraphs about 20 are directly devoted to his Smart Fan. 10 paragraphs out of 20 refer to ceiling fans. Also, an actual quote from the article: "Engineer Sharad Ashani is fond of demoing his anti-suicide ceiling fan by attempting to hang himself on Indian TV." You'd think/hope somebody making this kind of product would at least be aware of the Young Werther Effect.
  • DanBC 9y ago
    The most important suicide prevention measure is to reduce access to means and methods. If people in India are hanging themselves from ceiling fans a safer fan would be an important suicide prevention measure. Why is it "stupid"?
    • sonaltr 9y ago
      I'd say the most important measure would be to fix the root cause. If kids don't have access to fans, they'll find something else.
  • tathougies 8y ago
    I mean American articles on mass murders and suicides tend to concentrate on gun control... what's the difference?
• nishnik 9y ago
  I appreciate this for the article points out an alarming issue. But there has been slight mis-representation. It slightly portrays that Indian engineering education landscape starts and ends in IITs only. No, there are the NITs, BITSes, IIITs, IISc and others which have equal facilities as IITs and are even doing better than some IITs.
  • kamaal 9y ago
    >>It slightly portrays that Indian engineering education landscape starts and ends in IITs only. Well, the problem is people treat degrees from these institutions as lifelong aristocratic privilege. Once you start going in that direction, its now in your interest to keep the myths alive about your alma mater. How else are you going to earn higher than everybody else? You have to convince the society nobody can ever be good as you, by very social design, and you have to keep things that way.
    • kobiguru 9y ago
      I agree. Many Indian jobs advertisement specially mention student from IIT only. there is job site that targets only IITians. So the pedigree obviously is valuable.
      • blocked_again 9y ago
        Can you point to any job description that says so? I have never seen any job description that mentions only IIT students can apply for the job. I have seen some mediocre companies mentioning open to only IITs, NITs, and IIITs though.
        • amalfra 9y ago
          Almost all jobs of good software engineering companies these days have a top college degree as a requirement in their job ads. If you have been in the job market you would know the fact that it's the degree that matters most. Companies prefer to even give an interview only if you have a degree from top-tier college. Whether we like it or not it's the fact that here we need a degree from top college to get good opportunities and job.
• more-coffee 9y ago
  "Large group of young students in India, pursuing a future under impossible circumstances, collapsing under the immense pressure and leading some of them to commit suicide." Well, that's terrible. Surely we should discuss why they even get to this point, and how this could be prevented? "Most suicides happen by hanging from ceiling fans, so let's make anti-suicide ceiling fans." Nailed it.
  • trinkletingas 9y ago
    Perfect solution to a perfect problem of course.
  • manojlds 9y ago
    So to admit my daughter to pre kindergarten, the school expects her to know the alphabet already. Talk about pressure.
    • enitihas 9y ago
      Well, some schools even expect the parents to be well educated.
      • adrianN 9y ago
        That's not unreasonable if you want to select for high performing children. The correlation is very clear.
        • enitihas 9y ago
          There are various correlations which are very clear, like parents wealth. The question is whether these are ethical. If every school filters for such criterion, would students from poor or uneducated parents ever have a chance at social mobility? Do we want such a society?
          • lotsofpulp 9y ago
            In the US, the voting majority seems to want such a society, otherwise we wouldn't have so many politicians cutting education and other taxpayer funded support to families in need.
• kamaal 9y ago
  These things have always existed in India. Largely happens because most people come from a strata of society where failure is not an option. Should you fail, you go back to the same crappy conditions all life. Having said that, Indians solicit social approval as a report card that evaluates their life. And due to this people face irrational pressures from total strangers who have no stake in their lives. I remember suicide cases were common even during lay offs. Thank fully now the society is gradually gaining numbers in non-conformists. This is now considered cool. I remember as a teenager I was largely treated as a rebel outcast, if didn't care for social approval. People need to understand they can do what they want, how they want, and on their terms. Social approval means nothing, especially if people granting the approval have no real stake in your life.
  • preordained 9y ago
    >People need to understand they can do what they want, how they want, and on their terms Not to be nit picker...but while encouraging to hear, that sentence seems a wee bit exaggerated. I think the main takeaway from your post--which I 100% agree with--is that social approval being the motivator in your life is a recipe for disappointment.
  • modi15 9y ago
    > Having said that, Indians solicit social approval as a report card that evaluates their life. Ask any psychologist and they will confirm that 'soliciting social approval as a report card to evaluate their life' is basically a human condition affection close to 100% of the species. The only thing 'Indian' about it is that maybe only Indians think that its an 'Indian' thing.
    • vinni2 9y ago
      > The only thing 'Indian' about it is that maybe only Indians think that its an 'Indian' thing. I am an Indian and I disagree with this. A large fraction (yes it is changing) of Indian society cares a lot about what relatives and neighbors would think about our lifestyle. There are so many taboos and restrictions inflicted upon family members simply because pressure from relatives and neighbors. My own family keeps quoting things like "what would relatives say" about my life choices. Now I live in a western society and I don't have to worry about it.
• SFjulie1 9y ago
  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187043/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187043/ 3 idiots an indian "comedy" treats of this.
• enitihas 9y ago
  The root problem is that there are too few institutes offering quality education, and given the limited seats, the competition is sky high. Without going to Kota, there is almost zero chance a student from a small town or village is going to make it to any of those institutions. The quality of education in a reputed City school and the best small town school is vastly different. I consider myself lucky that my district happened to have a good school, that students even from neighbouring districts attended (we are talking about travelling 30 kms to school). But not everyone has access to one and hence Kota is their only alternative.
• spacehome 9y ago
  > From the start of 2014 to November 2017, 45 Kota students committed suicide. Every suicide is a tragedy, but what's the base rate? I have no idea if 45 is a lot or a little without knowing how many people were Kota students during this timeframe and what the overall youth suicide rate in India is. For all the reader knows, the suicide rate is lower in this population. Why doesn't the media report the basic information that would make their case? It's bad, innumerate reporting. I bring this up because the way this is reported is similar to the Foxconn suicide "scandal" where it turned out the suicide rate among Foxconn employees was lower than the national average. (https://www.zdnet.com/article/media-gets-its-facts-wrong-working-at-foxconn-significantly-cuts-suicide-risk/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/media-gets-its-facts-wrong-wor...)
• raincom 9y ago
  When more than 50% of seats are reserved under quotas, what is there left to compete, unless you are the brightest of the bright. It is irrational to put efforts to study for exams for both open category candidates and those under reservation categories.
  • univalent 8y ago
    There are no quotas in IITs or BITS. Just SC/ST which is like 1-2%
• coldtea 9y ago
  How is death less high pressure that an exam so as to seem more enticing an option?
  • anilgulecha 9y ago
    It could be possible that students in a high-stress, highly-competitive, financially-addled situation are unable to see the cold logic you've presented.
  • sonaltr 9y ago
    if you are dead, you don't have to deal with failure. For young kids who are easily impressionable - failure not being an option is forced into kids since kindergarten. This is the very obvious result.
  • volkk 9y ago
    Have you ever been in a situation where all you want is for it to be no more? I have, and while I haven't actually considered suicide, few thoughts have definitely ran through my mind wondering "what if I just didn't exist anymore so that I wouldn't be in this miserable situation" before quickly snapping out of it. Some people don't snap out of it and latch onto it while it slowly festers, and then ultimately it just happens on a particularly low day.
• pulsarpietro 9y ago
  All striving to conform, what a waste of minds. Poor people, they should rebel.
  • sonaltr 9y ago
    As an Indian who's been through this (and luckily got out) - for every one person who rebels, you'll have nine others who'll be lining up to take that person's place.
  • jerf 9y ago
    "Poor people, they should rebel." ... and then...? Smash the institutions providing a way to raise themselves up, and then...? I assume you'd want them to build up new ones, to which I'd ask, out of what, exactly? And when they build up new ones, how will these new ones avoid having the problem that they must inevitably pass through a period where the number of people who want to use them will grossly exceed the available capacity of the system?
  • sannee 9y ago
    > Poor people, they should rebel. Rebelling against the school system is inverse tragedy of the commons - large individual loss and small societal gain. There is no real incentive to do that.
• nikhilprem 9y ago
  Kota has become infamous but there are other places like Hyderabad where student suicides is a serious problem. This happens even in IITs in India. Taking admission in a prestigious college is a pressure situation in every country. What separates the rest of the world from India is that Indian students are left in isolation during this time in places like Kota. Family is not around during this vulnerable time. This sure will change in the coming years.
• 110011 9y ago
  This is a pretty inane article for placing too much emphasis on a stupid gimmick like anti-suicide ceiling fans, when the underlying issue is a serious mental health issue of extraordinarily stressed students. I'm Indian and I remember the summer of my 12th grade exams back in 2007 just like yesterday because of some latent awareness that something very important is happening here. I sat in so many exams that summer. First was the CBSE boards aka AISSCE (which was the all-important failsafe), then AIEEE (for admission to the NITs), then BITSAT (for admission to BITS), and finally the IITJEE (for admission to the IITs). All these exams are fairly long, and you compete at the national level. Already back then the competition was fierce with kids enrolling in tuition centers half a decade even before their first attempt at any of these exams (it was quite common for people to try a few times). I could write a very long essay about the depth of preparation that goes into attempting these exams. It is quite natural that the competitive pressures has worsened over the years with students attempting to out-prepare one another by even bigger margins. In a country so huge, of course not all students attempt this route, but landing a seat in the small list of prestigious institutions is the only ticket to a good career in India for the most part. This is not unlike American students who take AP level courses, demonstrate exceptional talent in sports or music, or volunteer their time in different ways to stand out in the application process at one of the big name schools. So in that sense, this is describing a very relatable struggle among students across nations, though the means are substantially different.
  • notyourday 9y ago
    > This is a pretty inane article for placing too much emphasis on a stupid gimmick like anti-suicide ceiling fans, when the underlying issue is a serious mental health issue of extraordinarily stressed students. That's what happens when a nation of over a billion people has only a few hundred thousand spots on a top. It is insane competition. Wired is writing about it because this level of competition is absolutely foreign to the last few generations of westerners. It is a norm for India, China or Russia. And these are the people who will be competing with us in 10-20 years.
    • Retric 9y ago
      India is seeing very rapid per capita GDP growth. So, while the number of top economic spots is limited the range of 'acceptable' is expanding fairly quickly. However, exams like this are still stressful in Japan where high standards of living are far more accessible. Which suggests it's more about importance and being zero sum that's the core issue.
• madengr 9y ago
  This happens in the USA too, except at college level. A nearby shooting range has had a few suicides by Asian students at the end of the spring semester.
• itissid 9y ago
  Extreme economic incentives perpetuate odd socio-economic behaviour. Look at the Japanese greying population renting everything from fake family to a complete fake wedding with the whole 9 yards[1](Yes Virginia there is a Netflix documentary on it as well[2]). But enough about Japan. The dangers to India are very real. - 1 million people entering the workforce every month due to demographics. - 50% population engaged in agriculture providing 14% of the GDP. - Difficult labor laws, swamped Judicial system makes for only technology intensive industries that employ fewer people. It is a unique experiment in the history of Democracies where ~600 Million people need to be lifted out of poverty and into sustainable jobs. This has not been done before. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/ https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2017/11/paying-fo... [2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06Y1JVLD4 https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06Y1JVLD4
• vinceguidry 9y ago
  When I learned that the military suicide rate is no higher than the suicide rate in the civilian world, my criteria for believing that any one thing is so deleterious to mental health that it actually drives people to suicide went up tremendously. Our minds are remarkably robust and most will handle immense pressure. Some minds just aren't. Sure, they'll crack under pressure. But that pressure can come from literally anywhere, including existential angst that comes from nowhere but the person's own mind. Hence why suicide rates tend to remain constant no matter the situation.
  • Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    I wouldn’t expect the military suicide rate to be higher than the civilian one. Yes, the military does involve stresses, but there is also some sense of camaraderie and common cause. I’d expect more suicide in places where people don’t get those kinds of social bonds.
• kstx 9y ago
  Just wondering how this might be tied to the statistic[1] which ranks top countries (hours/week) where parents help their kids with their homework. India ranks as the top country. This might set bad habits to the students with learning, as they come more dependant to get help from their parents (and other peers) and it might also hamper their problem solving skills. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16882430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16882430
  • jackhack 9y ago
    And not too far from parental "assistance: is the question of cheating, which is reportedly widespread. Is it the pressure of the exams alone, or anger about the cheating-prevention measures? Somewhat related, I recall stories of riots in China due to anti-cheating measures -- teachers and proctors were dragged into the streets and beaten, and one parent indignantly proclaimed "It's not fair! If they cannot cheat, how will they succeed?"
• marsrover 9y ago
  I quit reading when they started trying to sell me on a new product.
• Simulacra 9y ago
  Wow, this sounds so much like China. In college I had a professor who obsessed over a conundrum: India, the world's largest democracy, is also its poorest. Why? He believed it was due to caste, religion, and education. I wonder if India is continually looking east and trying to duplicate some of the Chinese rise to power.
  • modi15 9y ago
    If America would have been poor, he would have blamed racism, guns and ignorance for the same.
• good_sir_ant 9y ago
  Sure, high pressure. Has nothing to do with the fact that India ranks 136 on the Freedom Index, let alone it's other issues.
• ausjke 9y ago
  from what i read and what i saw in test cheating,is it common in india culture? our local high school is investigating test cheating,turns out all of them(12) are from indian,which puzzled me, other culture treats test cheating something extremely bad,but the india students probably think it is not a big deal?
  • sumedh 9y ago
    Indian here, unfortunately cheating/not following rules is part of our culture. Most of the times you dont get caught, if you do get caught then you just have to pay a small bribe and you are free. So if you dont cheat you will fall behind everbody else is doing it so you do it as well
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  • ranie93 9y ago
    This video showing widespread cheating at one school seems relevant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fjk6LmHtxA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fjk6LmHtxA
• jitix 9y ago
  >To prepare, students from across India travel to the historic northern city of Kota, spending months or even years away from their family and home. Whether the children of manual labourers or business tycoons, all have traveled to Kota for one reason: academic glory Highly misleading. Only a small percentage of people actually go to Kota for preparation, and the number of students in Kota coming from poorer sections of society is exetremely low. The coaching institutes are not cheap, sometimes costing almost as much as college tuition. This paragraph paints it as some kind of pilgrimage that every student goes through.
• throwaway_45 9y ago
  India is a country with a huge split. There is a lot of rich people and and a lot of poor people. This is the only chance a lot of these kids have to get out of their situation. We complain about america's social safety net well India's is a lot worse. It doesn't really even exist. If some of these kids can't get out they lose hope. I think the dream is get into IIT, get into MNC or US college and get out. Yeah it puts a huge amount of pressure on kids because it might not be just them, but their families too. They are making huge sacrifices too for their kid to succeed.
• truculation 9y ago
  The ridiculous thing is that exams are irrational: they don't measure knowledge and ability, i.e. they don't measure what they purport to measure. It makes the societal scale suffering and death all the more meaningless and disturbing.
  • TangoTrotFox 9y ago
    Why do you think they don't measure knowledge and ability? They're not perfect of course, but I mean asking you to demonstrate your competence in a series of problems is going to give at least a reasonable ballpark of somebody's competence. Yeah, things like preparation classes can kind of turn it all into gaming the system, but on the other hand I'm quite curious what percent of people that scored e.g. perfectly on the math on the SAT actually took these classes. I did, and I never did any preparation - but I've always enjoyed and done well at math, and I think my performance was reflected in this. And I don't think somebody who had no ability or enjoyment of math is suddenly going to start scoring very well just because of some prep classes.
    • truculation 9y ago
      The way I see it. Exams can check recall of facts, names, definitions. Also skill at identifying narrow classes of problems (which resemble facts) and extracting them from unrealistic settings. e.g. 'There are 49 dogs signed up to compete in the dog show. There are 36 more small dogs than large dogs signed up to compete. How many small dogs are signed up to compete?' and other such trick questions. The former can be crammed and quickly forgotten. Not knowledge. The latter skill isn't knowledge of the relevant field. In the less rigorous, more arty fields (shall we say) the trick is usually to flatter the examiners by firing their own opinions back at them in original ways. This can be highly skillful and requires awareness of the academic milieu. But not knowledge of the relevant field. What counts is depth, and depth depends on semantic connections, including connections to other fields. These are all differentiated and can't be meaningfully added to yield a number, as if we were counting eggs or measuring a distance.
  • tathougies 8y ago
    So I attempted to find some exam questions. I found the following page: http://cbseacademic.nic.in/SQP_CLASSXII_2017_18_final.html http://cbseacademic.nic.in/SQP_CLASSXII_2017_18_final.html I took a look at chemistry, english, and CS. I noticed that there were relatively few multiple choice questions compared to American exams. All exams had a written component, and the questions seem thought out. The english test in particular seemed to actually focus on real-life use cases for language (speech writing, ad drafting, and mannerisms), which is arguably more important than what American schools typically spend all their time on (the literary essay or persuasive essay).
• osrec 9y ago
  India is an interesting place at the moment and the pressure to succeed is immense (often to the detriment of personal wellbeing). So much so that cheating schemes are commonly devised by large groups of people, and the ingenuity involved is often quite remarkable and creative. I've personally hired a number of people in my Delhi office from the local IIT, and these are a few things I've noticed amongst new grads: parrot fashion learning is rife across the board. Despite being smart, they often struggle to think on their feet. It's as if they want a fully defined a problem domain, AND want to solve problems only within that defined domain, much like an exam! Anything outside of their comfort zone is met with a rather damp response equating to "we haven't covered that in class yet". In business (and even development), that attitude is not a good one to have. What's funny, however, is that if you walk past an Indian shanty town, you will find examples of (often illegal) innovation at every corner, from stolen electricty to rigged water meters etc - usually concocted by people with little education. The innovative mindset exists in the heart of Indian society, but the education system somehow seems to restrict it by making people believe that the path to success is narrow and the same for everyone. Hence the competition. I feel the education system needs to encourage free thinking more than rote learning. I believe it would allow students to enjoy their subjects, rather than just looking at them as a stepping stone to success. Perhaps if students approached their studies with a sense of wonder and excitement, rather than competetive aggression, their mental state would be significantly better during their years of education.
  • 110011 9y ago
    Without a doubt all the years of exam preparation in the teenage years come at a steep cost. For a young person in their teens to not have the time to reflect, be self-aware, and explore what life has to offer, is necessarily a failure of the system as a whole. But that is the reality in India, and if students must trade all that for studying hard then it simply reflects their (I would argue correct) perspective on the potential rewards of a solid career and securing your future from the certain chaos that awaits the uneducated or even poorly performing students in India. In that sense I would say it is unfair to claim that Indian students graduating from an IIT can't do this or that; it is actually an achievement in and of itself that they managed to get there and out without turning out to be entirely dysfunctional. While I would not argue that competition in India (in the context of these national examinations) is much higher than the competition in the West in various spheres (sports, sciences, tech, etc.), the reality is that the breadth of options to a good place in life is extremely limited, and the competition is rather concentrated to a few possibilities. You cannot opt to become a YouTuber, pro basketball player or a digital nomad if you're born Indian. There is essentially a bunch of careers in science, engineering and medicine, and a few top institutions for each of these ends, whose pedigree can get you very far, and failing that, there is much uncertainty to be faced. And most Indian students, while unable to articulate this, clearly feel these pressures and act accordingly.
• fspacef 9y ago
  There is a Bollywood movie that excels on this subject and delves deeper into the culture that creates an environment favorable to such outcomes. Name = "3 Idiots"
• thewhitetulip 9y ago
  The issue is that kids aren't taught to handle pressure, that is the main problem because parents pamper kids until they go to college! as a child, you are not allowed to have your own decisions, like ever. You eat what your parents tell you to eat, you take admission to undergrad/postgrad about what your parents tell. You study hard as they told you, they even decide when and to whom you lose virginity! (arranged marriage) No wonder if there is a little pressure then kids can't handle it. This is not a governmental issue, this is societal one. and the government can't do shit, pardon my language. Now what will happen? The govt will panick and reduce the quality of exams, the exams which are already pathetic in quality, the proof for which can be found by counting the number of Indian instituties in top 100 in the world, ONE!!
  • harryVic 8y ago
    I agree with you on most things but not the last part. Have you even seen Indian Engineering/Medical entrance exam questions? North American high school exams are a joke compared to Indian Engineering Entrance tests. And IITs are good schools. They aren't ranked as high because they don't fulfil the breadth requirements for those ranking studies. They are purely engineering schools.
    • thewhitetulip 8y ago
      And yet there hasn't been one unicorn out of any IITs. All IITians or most of them go out of India. What di I do of the tough entrace exams? What is the use if IITs?
  • sn41 8y ago
    I have studied in Indian and American universities. Many "top ranked" American universities have considerably milder requirements than what is required for passing IIT JEE. Ranking is based on a number of factors like funding and number of foreign faculty and students. It has nothing to do with the toughness of the entrance exams. In fact, if you rank institutes according to acceptance ratios, IITs will nearly be the top institutes in the world (the acceptance percentage, roughly 10000 among 1200000, or approx 0.8 percent), along with places like University of Tokyo. If you say restrict to the 5 old IITs, the acceptance ratio is around 0.4 percent. Acceptance ratios have been kept out from ranking parameters.
• oarla 9y ago
  I am from India, and I have experienced the kind of pressure that this article is talking about. Personally, I feel that the root cause of this kind of pressure placed on teenagers is the abject fear of failure that is prevalent in India, especially in the middle class population. If one cannot crack these exams with flying colors, then society(most part of it at least) writes them off as losers who are doomed to a low paying job with no prospects of success in life, financial and personal. A lot of people equate academic brilliance with intelligence and build up on that logic that it'll lead to financial prosperity, which in turn will lead to a good image in society and hence happiness. Don't have good marks, you are worthless. Never bother if you are a great athlete, singer, artist or any of the other vocations. Even within academics, if you can't make it into one of the areas which pay a lot, like CS/EE/Medical science etc, then society views you with pity about your wasted talent. Doesn't matter how skilled of a Civil/Mechanical engineer or architect you are. I feel lucky to have been exposed to the western system to get out of such a though process and hope that India can pick up some good things from the west in the field of education.
• abraham_s 9y ago
  An anecdote and a poll. I grew up in India in middle class family where education was considered important. A recurring nightmare (autual dream I see during sleep) I see even in my adulthood is about me about to take an exam and not being prepared for it. I do not see this nightmare often but I still remember it since the amount of panic I feel when I see it. I discussed with my wife and she also have these nightmare of similar nature. I wanted to check whether anyone out here see this and whether it is more prevalent in culture like Indian culture or is it a universal phenomenon?
  • phrz 9y ago
    I can attest that, as an American, my parents (college educated) would always bring up that recurring nightmare whenever the topic of dreams came up. They casually noted that it happened frequently in their adult lives, and that it would inevitably happen to me once I graduated college. Notably they didn't see it as a negative, but a sign of a "conscientious personality."
  • praneshp 9y ago
    I commented up in the thread too, but talking about it to my doctor helped me. I have a recurring dream of waking up two days before chemistry exam and not having prepared anything. I don't know why it's always chemistry, I'd pick another subject that I really struggled at like physics if there was a choice.
  • lyk 8y ago
    That happens to a lot of college graduates I know. They stopped for me around a year or so after graduating.
  • existencebox 8y ago
    American also born to an education-focused set of parents. I've been out of school well over a decade and still have those nightmares. Usually correlates with work-stress for me now, but at least once or twice a year I wake up terrified out of a dream where I'm walking around my highschool (always highschool, never college, oddly, despite my college courses being MUCH harder; I think because the artificial stakes and utter lack of autonomy) trying to find the classroom for some test I didn't realize I had. I had this same conversation with my wife recently as well. It still blows me away that I'm hard pressed to think of situations where I felt as stressed/panicked as I was in parts of highschool, and I've not shirked challenges by any means. I both respect and would not want to be a kid growing up nowadays.
• hypertexthero 9y ago
  > I WONDER IF we have ever asked ourselves what education means. Why do we go to school, why do we learn various subjects, why do we pass examinations and compete with each other for better grades? What does this so-called education mean, and what is it all about? This is really a very important question, not only for the students, but also for the parents, for the teachers, and for everyone who loves this earth. Why do we go through the struggle to be educated? Is it merely in order to pass some examinations and get a job? Or is it the function of education to prepare us while we are young to understand the whole process of life? Having a job and earning one's livelihood is necessary - but is that all? Are we being educated only for that? Surely, life is not merely a job, an occupation; life is something extraordinarily wide and profound, it is a great mystery, a vast realm in which we function as human beings. If we merely prepare ourselves to earn a livelihood, we shall miss the whole point of life; and to understand life is much more important than merely to prepare for examinations and become very proficient in mathematics, physics, or what you will. > So, whether we are teachers or students, is it not important to ask ourselves why we are educating or being educated? And what does life mean? Is not life an extraordinary thing? The birds, the flowers, the flourishing trees, the heavens, the stars, the rivers and the fish therein - all this is life. Life is the poor and the rich; life is the constant battle between groups, races and nations; life is meditation; life is what we call religion, and it is also the subtle, hidden things of the mind - the envies, the ambitions, the passions, the fears, fulfilments and anxieties. All this and much more is life. But we generally prepare ourselves to understand only one small corner of it. We pass certain examinations, find a job, get married, have children, and then become more and more like machines. We remain fearful, anxious, frightened of life. So, is it the function of education to help us understand the whole process of life, or is it merely to prepare us for a vocation, for the best job we can get? > What is going to happen to all of us when we grow to be men and women? Have you ever asked yourselves what you are going to do when you grow up? In all likelihood you will get married, and before you know where you are you will be mothers and fathers; and you will then be tied to a job, or to the kitchen, in which you will gradually wither away. Is that all that your life is going to be? Have you ever asked yourselves this question? Should you not ask it? If your family is wealthy you may have a fairly good position already assured, your father may give you a comfortable job, or you may get richly married; but there also you will decay, deteriorate. Do you see? > Surely, education has no meaning unless it helps you to understand the vast expanse of life with all its subtleties, with its extraordinary beauty, its sorrows and joys. You may earn degrees, you may have a series of letters after your name and land a very good job; but then what? What is the point of it all if in the process your mind becomes dull, weary, stupid? So, while you are young, must you not seek to find out what life is all about? And is it not the true function of education to cultivate in you the intelligence which will try to find the answer to all these problems? Do you know what intelligence is? It is the capacity, surely, to think freely without fear, without a formula, so that you begin to discover for yourself what is real, what is true; but if you are frightened you will never be intelligent. Any form of ambition, spiritual or mundane, breeds anxiety, fear; therefore ambition does not help to bring about a mind that is clear, simple, direct, and hence intelligent. > You know, it is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death. Most of us have fear in one form or another; and where there is fear there is no intelligence. And is it not possible for all of us, while we are young, to be in an environment where there is no fear but rather an atmosphere of freedom - freedom, not just to do what we like, but to understand the whole process of living? Life is really very beautiful, it is not this ugly thing that we have made of it; and you can appreciate its richness, its depth, its extraordinary loveliness only when you revolt against everything - against organized religion, against tradition, against the present rotten society - so that you as a human being find out for yourself what is true. Not to imitate but to discover - that is education, is it not? It is very easy to conform to what your society or your parents and teachers tell you. That is a safe and easy way of existing; but that is not living, because in it there is fear, decay, death. To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself. > But you are not encouraged to do this; no one tells you to question, to find out for yourself what God is, because if you were to rebel you would become a danger to all that is false. Your parents and society want you to live safely, and you also want to live safely. Living safely generally means living in imitation and therefore in fear. Surely, the function of education is to help each one of us to live freely and without fear, is it not? And to create an atmosphere in which there is no fear requires a great deal of thinking on your part as well as on the part of the teacher, the educator. > Do you know what this means - what an extraordinary thing it would be to create an atmosphere in which there is no fear? And we must create it, because we see that the world is caught up in endless wars; it is guided by politicians who are always seeking power; it is a world of lawyers, policemen and soldiers, of ambitious men and women all wanting position and all fighting each other to get it. Then there are the so-called saints, the religious gurus with their followers; they also want power, position, here or in the next life. It is a mad world, completely confused, in which the communist is fighting the capitalist, the socialist is resisting both, and everybody is against somebody, struggling to arrive at a safe place, a position of power or comfort. The world is torn by conflicting beliefs, by caste and class distinctions, by separative nationalities, by every form of stupidity and cruelty - and this is the world you are being educated to fit into. You are encouraged to fit into the framework of this disastrous society; your parents want you to do that, and you also want to fit in. > Now, is it the function of education merely to help you to conform to the pattern of this rotten social order, or is it to give you freedom - complete freedom to grow and create a different society, a new world? We want to have this freedom, not in the future, but now, otherwise we may all be destroyed. We must create immediately an atmosphere of freedom so that you can live and find out for yourselves what is true, so that you become intelligent, so that you are able to face the world and understand it, not just conform to it, so that inwardly, deeply, psychologically you are in constant revolt; because it is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. It is only when you are constantly inquiring, constantly observing, constantly learning, that you find truth, God, or love; and you cannot inquire, observe, learn, you cannot be deeply aware, if you are afraid. So the function of education, surely, is to eradicate, inwardly as well as outwardly, this fear that destroys human thought, human relationship and love. From Think On These Things (or This Matter of Culture), Chapter 1, The Function of Education By Jiddu Krishnamurti https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13470.Think_on_These_Things https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13470.Think_on_These_Thi...
• j0e1 9y ago
  Having gone through the system, my two cents: The exploding population of India has put a huge pressure on the public infrastructure. Any credible university/college (because of numerous swindling orgs) which usually means govt. run has a flood of candidates, the IITs being the archetypal example. Add this to the social pressure put by the definition of success according to the culture and you've got yourself in an Indian pressure cooker[1] which shapes you to perfectly fit the mold of the educational system- effectively quenching creativity. I wouldn't generalize though. The smart still are able to wiggle through and come out the other end without selling their soul. But the opportunity cost for the others who would have excelled given better instruction and infrastructure is unfathomable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_cooking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_cooking
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• twooclock 8y ago
  Reminds me of the movie 3 idiots (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1187043/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1187043/). I guess the story is still valid nowdays. Great inspirational movie btw...
• Balgair 8y ago
  One thing for Westerners to be aware of: In India, your exam scores (SAT-type thingys) are public, very public. They are usually published in a special edition of the local newspaper, in descending order. Meaning that the best kid comes first in a very public way. Couple this with the familial honor system/arranged marriages and I think you'll understand why pressure can be so intense. Even your love-life can be radically changed by these tests.
  • outworlder 8y ago
    OMG! And I thought some of my teachers were horrible because they handed out exam results in descending order. Although, now that I think about it, my country does the exact same thing for university admission exams, at least the public ones.
  • tathougies 8y ago
    Yup.. My parents and aunts and uncles all tell us how great we have it. Their results were all published publicly. Interesting to know it still happens.
• jaequery 8y ago
  Surprised Korea wasnt mentioned, I believe they have the highest suical rates if Im not mistaken. The kids starting from elementary start school at 7am and comes back home around midnight. Which is really gross and atrocious to hear, almost as bad as labor camps if you ask me.
• asdasdasdasd123 8y ago
  My parents died when I was 7. I starved for food when I was a kid. My elder siblings sacrificed everything to buy me books. I wore tattered clothes all my childhood. Today, at age 38, I'm worth many millions of dollars and living in Silicon Valley. Why? For three years, between ages 15-18, I worked my arse off, studying under candle lights and streetlights (no electricity at home) and got into IIT. I agree that something needs to be done. A few of my relatives went into depression and have serious mental health issues due to the stress of preparing for IIT JEE. Having seen both sides of the story, I don't have a solution. A good job can be life changing, while the human toll it takes along the way cannot justify the means...
• vinayms 8y ago
  The situation is nothing new. I am from Bangalore and often hear a well known anecdote about Mysore, a large historically rich city about 100 km from Bangalore. I hear it from people of my parents' generation, so it must be the 60s. Its invariably said in a humorous tone. The 10th year of school is a very important stage, transitioning to university, and the exam has always been stress inducing. On the day of the result, there were policemen guarding a lake called kukkarahalli kere in order to stop students who failed from committing suicide.
• eric24234 8y ago
  The important thing what people miss outside india is that india forces people to marry by 28 or so. This mean the thought responsibiliy is so huge. This is not the case in western society. It is much more evolved. An individual has a free choice to choose work less and enjoy and not have a family. This is sadly not the case in india.
• RandomCSGeek 8y ago
  The problem is not with the exams. When millions try to get past the bottleneck with width of 10K, the competition will obviously be intense. And a developing country like India cannot afford more institutes like IITs, even those that currently exist(the newer ones) need a lot of improvement, especially funding for research. IMHO, the problem lies with the parents who push/force their children into a race that they don't want to be a part of. Then it doesn't matter if they excel or not, they feel lost and hopeless. The number of classmates I had during engg who had no interest in engg/CS was huge. Solving this problem would solve a lot of issues. It's getting solved as people are getting disillusioned from Engg == Money. The number of students applying to engg is gradually decreasing every year (80K less this year).