“Exam pressure forces class X boy to kill self”; “Class XII students hangs himself, unable to cope with pressure”.
Come February and any news of this sort is neither shocking nor surprising, apropos the Board exams. They can simply be brushed away as acts of cowardice. But an outrage to the extent that a student stabs a teacher because he was reprimanded for his poor performance is inexplicable.
You are horror-struck, taken aback, mute for want of words but heave a sigh of relief only because you got out of the same system a few years back.
Failure
Your life is still guided infallibly by the indelible aphorism, “Live and let live” that you were once taught in the “value education” or “moral instruction” classes. This is when questions begin to trouble you and you are desperate to find answers.
Is parenting the only thing to blame? Isn't it a manifestation of collective failure of the system itself? Are the mores that mould our society fundamentally convoluted? Or is the civilisation wounded in itself?
The human mind is in persistent quest for answers to questions which will absolve itself from the collective responsibility on the one hand. Endothermically; on the other hand, it takes on the full blame and attributes guilt to itself. Introspection of the self as opposed to intriguing into such instances will actually help.
We are a part of this eco-system. Whether we like it or not, we are responsible, remotely at least. Each of us has been run over by emotions; some of us have channelised this constructively, while most others have simply annihilated, either themselves or the circle around them. Either way, it's a very disturbing trend and its time we start looking for feasible solutions.
Setting right
Coming back to moral instruction and value education classes, the problem is these are looked upon as vacuum concepts.
Hard to imagine, but wouldn't it be wonderful if our system catered value-based education that is morally instructed? The answers to all the questions are as entangled as the system itself.
If only education was not a commodity. If only education went beyond just assuring a safe job. If only people still believe that money, most certainly, can't buy everything. If only…
KRIPA RAMACHANDRAN, IV Year, B.A, LLB, School of Law, SASTRA University, Tanjavur
