Entrance Examination - A Rite of Passage

From Kapil Sibal, our honorable HRD minister to the kitchen maid everyone is worried about the students appearing for entrance examinations to professional courses. The society is worried that these students are stressed out unnecessarily because they have to appear for a multitude of entrance examinations.

            It is true that students passing out of XII class have to appear for a variety of entrance examinations – a minimum of three. Not only does this involve expenditure of energy but also money and time. It often involves long distance journeys and staying over.  There is a lot of tension but what is life without some stress, which can make or break an individual. Just as gold has to face high temperatures to be fashioned into exquisite jewellery; wood to face the unkind cuts of the saw by the carpenter and the stone the blows of the sculptor to emerge as a striking statue so also humans have to go through the fires of entrance examinations to succeed in life. This is a common practice all over the World and not restricted to our country only. The UMAT and GAT of Australia; NCET of China; NCT of Japan, USE of Russia, HAT, GMSAT and others of UK as also SAT and others in US impose the same stress on their teenagers leaving High School but no one gets as worked up about it as do Indians and the Indian Government.

            Parents have to realize that these examinations are like rites of passage in the olden days. In the past people while moving from adolescence to adulthood had to prove their physical strength and stamina by going through the rites of passage. In the modern World these examinations are being used to prove the mental ability of the youth to face the problems of the professional World. It is inevitable. The mother bears the pains of a child entering the World but the pains of the entering the professional World has to be borne by them. Just as the mother cannot be spared the delivery pains these children cannot be rescued from the entrance examination pains. What is needed is the right attitude – it should be faced a challenge and not as a drudgery or a punishment. The children have to be trained from childhood to acquire the right attitude towards these examinations so that they enjoy it and not dread it.
            Remember that in life stress is unavoidable whether one wants to enter professional course or otherwise. What matters is the way we handle it. The same can assume a positive force and become Eustress or a negative force and cause Distress. It is up to you as a parent and as a student how you manage it!