New Delhi : Students so depressed that they want to commit suicide, hapless teachers at a loss to comfort pupils, harried parents...Calls have been pouring in at the Delhi government's Yuva counselling helpline for the past month thanks to the Class 10 and 12 board exams.
"There has been a sharp rise in the distress calls we have been getting from students these days. This is mainly because of the CBSE [Central Board of Secondary Education] board exams that are on," Manju Kumar, consultant at the Yuva counselling helpline centre in Defence Colony, said.
"Last week we received three calls on one day from students who were so depressed that they wanted to commit suicide. It took us almost three hours of counselling and then calling back after some time to ensure that they were fine and in a better state of mind," Kumar said.
All three were students of Class 12 who couldn't perform well. Two of them were girls.
"It shocks you at times...the kind of calls that come. Children are so much under strain because of exams; then there is peer pressure and parental pressure. We get 80-100 calls every day and most of them are from students at a loss on how to deal with the pressure of exams," she said.
While the toll-free helpline (1800116888) is functional throughout the year, it's during the Class 10 and 12 examination period — February and March — and during the admission time in Delhi University — around June — when the calls start pouring in again.
Poonam Gupta, one of the counsellors, said that besides students, teachers and parents also call up for help.
"At times parents call us for advice on how to make their kids study and help them be more competitive. Yesterday I got a call from a parent asking how to make her 10-year-old child study. Even teachers call us, asking us how to help their students deal with examination jitters," Gupta said.
