In India, thousands of students prepare for competitive exams whether for medicine, engineering, civil services or countless others. With limited seats and overwhelming number of candidates, success often feels like merit and more like chance.
Students dedicate years of their lives to this pursuit. Many invests lakhs of rupees in coaching, sacrifice leisure and commit to intense discipline. Yet, despite the hard work, focus and sleepless nights, success is never guaranteed.
When results don’t align with efforts, students often feel their worth has been erased. This crushing disappointment has tragically led some to extreme steps, including suicide. What’s missing is a culture of support and pressure management, guidance not only during preparation but also after results to help students deal with setbacks without losing themselves .
It is important to remember that competitive exams are not the end of the road. Various other career opportunities are available at par or even better than the competitive exams driven paths.
Competitive exams may shape a particular career track. However, it needs to be kept in mind that the world is wider than one exam and success have many definitions.
Competitive exams are the platform to build yourself . Though at a point you fail to crack the examination , still you will get to learn lot of things which will be usefull later in your life .
It is important for growth, but at the same time I feel that now the time for competitiveness has increased.. A student who is still in his adolescent, whose mind is still exploring things.. and you put a heavy burden of all the expectations, somehow it takes away all the skills, all the hobbies of such students. And so their only goal in life becomes that how they pass the competitive exams.
The recent case of a girl not being allowed to appear for NEET because she was just few minutes late is also an example of how years of efforts can be undone by such circumstances. It raises questions about how fair and humane these systems are.
I truly feel competitive exams are less of testing student knowledge and more of a commercial business in the name of education and student careers. Not talking about the exam itself but they purposefully make the whole process extremely hard. And for an average middle class or lower middle class student it’s not easy.
Long time taking applying processes, exam fees, traveling to the exam centre which are so far and sometimes in some other state, the stress, the competition, the extreme expectations, the hard papers. And most heartbreaking thing is how the society shapes it, that this exam is deciding factor of student future and loosing it means end of everything.