As per a study, 63.5% of Indian students reported stress due to academic pressure
As simple as it is, academic pressure is the body and mind's response towards rigorous academic demands. Just like other stress, academic pressure impacts the mental and physical well being of a student when it is experienced for a prolonged duration.
Academic pressure is more prevalent where the marks and grades obtained in the schools and colleges decide the social status, livelihood and future of an individual. It is seen in those systems where students are put through a standardised evaluation procedure limiting their scope to excel the boundaries and unleash their talents just for the sake of a pre-assumed, pre-set and pre-conditioned social life.
When the system or the authority, of which an individual is a part of, considers the academic performance card more valuable than the inherent skills, cases of academic pressure rise.
Textbook oriented teaching system, rote learning method, examination system for awarding degrees and degree based job selection systems are few prominent factors that are smoothly building academic pressure on young minds.
What are the risk factors of academic pressure?
Students, who are mostly adolescents, are prone to academic stress as it is the academic age in many countries. During the adolescent age an individual goes through a number of physiological and psychological changes which itself are a lot for a young person to process.
A research study says: "During this period, adolescents undergo many psychosocial and physiological changes making them more prone to various stresses.For them, academic related events are believed to be major stressors, especially in Asian countries,as their academic performance at this stage plays a decisive role in higher education and career."
High population and limited employability scope are other potential risk factors for academic stress. In a country like India where the adolescent population, which is ideally the employment seeking population, is 17% of the world's population, and there is a huge demand for jobs and high competition among job aspirants the tremendous pressure on young students goes unexplained.
As per the National Career Service (NCS) portal, more than 14 lakh eligible candidates are looking for jobs in the country from within 2.2 lakh jobs and 1.8 lakh employers.
Unemployment, delay in completion of recruitment processes, tough examinations for selection into jobs and the annual recruitment cycles can also be said as the unseen drivers of academic pressure.
Gender and caste can not be overlooked when it comes to any kind of pressure. Studies have shown that adolescent girls are more depressed with a high level of anxiety than their male counterparts when it comes to education. A 2018 survey in IIT campus revealed that saste discrimination faced by SC/STs is undeniably the worst and highlighted on the education gap in caste system. "...graduates from the SC or ST categories get significantly lower wages than those in the general one. This difference disappears once their lower grade point average (GPA) scores are accounted for, suggesting that the large wage difference is due to the lower academic performance of SC/ST candidates," the study found.
What does the data say?
On the effects of academic pressure, data reveals a rise in the number of suicides in the country.
As per a recent report, seven students of IIIT Nuzvidu have killed themselves in the last 5 years. Reason: Unable to cope with the changed medium of study, heavy competition, homesickness and tough exam pattern.
Cases of campus suicides are on rise in the last few years. As per the data from the Ministry of Education, 122 students of IITs and IIMs have died by suicide in the last seven years.
In January 2022, a 26 year old IIT Bombay student jumped from the terrace of his hostel. It was found that he was going through depression and was also seeking treatment from a psychiatrist.
63.5% of Indian students reported stress due to academic pressure, says a study. The 2015 research study says that 66% of the students feel pressurized from their parents for better academic performance. "The majority of the parents criticized their children by comparing the latter’s performance with that of the best performer in the class. As a result, instead of friendship, there develops a sense of rivalry among
classmates. Some parents even tend to demean the achievement of the top scorer of the class by stating that he/she might have been favoured by the teacher," it found.
The study shed light on the examination-related fear that most of the students have and found that more than 81% students fear exams.
Another similar study on 400 male students from five private secondary schools in Kolkata who were studying in grades 10 and 12. 35 percent of students were found to have high academic stress and 37 percent were found to have high anxiety levels.
What should be parents’ role to alleviate this stress?
Parental intervention is one of the sureshot ways to help combat academic stress from advancing towards mental trauma.
Parents should let go of the old, archaic and traditional perception about education and jobs and give their children a new space to grow. Children should be encouraged to pursue their hobbies, chase their passions and work hard to fulfill their dreams in whatever field they choose. The scope, the restrictions and the limitations of academics should not be set by parents.
Parental pressure accounts for one of the major reasons behind academic stress in students. In order to stop this certain changes in parental behaviour is a must. Comparison with peers, high expectations, overburdening the child for good performance, pushing their own dream on the child, passing remarks and taunts, showing aggressive behaviour when the expected result is not achieved are some of the parental traits that have been greatly mentioned in many research studies.
It’s time parents give a break to the age old concept of having a degree and a job.
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