It will be almost a week since the onset of CBSE’s Class 10 and 12 board exams. They commenced on February 15 and will end on March 18 and April 4 for the respective classes.
Students battle with many issues related to board exams. It is a crucial time when they need to handle the stress and anxiety that comes with the exams and address several issues that come with it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been interacting with students appearing for board exams through the annual event Pariksha Pe Charcha, which started in 2018. Held at the onset of board exams each year, this initiative aims to motivate students by addressing concerns related to exam stress, time management, and effective study techniques.
In addition to the Prime Minister’s engagement, the event features a series of interactions with toppers from various competitive exams, including NDA, IIT-JEE, CLAT, UPSC-CSE etc., providing valuable guidance on exam preparation.
Furthermore, several eminent personalities from different fields have participated in Pariksha Pe Charcha, sharing their experiences and insights on life and learning including Bollywood actresses Deepika Padukone and Bhumi Pednekar, actor Vikrant Massey, spiritual leader Sadhguru, boxing legend Mary Kom, Paralympic athlete Avani Lekhara, and badminton player Suhas Yathiraj.
This year PM Narendra Modi, contrary to the traditional town hall format, preferred a more informal setting by choosing Delhi’s iconic Sunder Nursery for his annual interaction .Leadership, Handling Pressure, Anxiety and Stress, Time Management, avoiding distractions, holistic development, Nutrition, Failures etc. were some of the themes that were dealt with by Mr. Modi in his interaction with the students.
Shaurya, a class 10 student from Springdales School, New Delhi says, “Paricha Pe Charcha is a good initiative undertaken to interact with the students who are under pressure and stressed due to board exams. I follow it whenever I get time.” Talking about Modi’s idea of opening up to your parents during anxiety and stress, Shaurya says he always talks to his parents about his stress and anxiety, “Whenever I get overwhelmed with exams and other related things, I open up to my parents and it helps me immensely.”
“I usually involve myself playing sports which serves as a healthy distraction and my parents don’t put pressure on me though they want me to do extremely well in the exam,” he said when talking about the distractions and whether his parents put pressure on him. “Unlike other parents, my parents are very supportive when it comes to my dreams and aspirations. I want to become a boxer and a civil servant,” he further added.
Neelakshi, a class 12 humanities student from Sadhu Vaswani International School for Girls, said, “I and my friends listen to the Paricha Pe Charcha and it helps and motivates us”.
Neelakshi, who wants to learn Korean after her graduation, feels that there should be a lesser emphasis on marks and more on acquisition of skills. She also feels that there should be more emphasis on the overall personality development of a student.
“I am an average student but I think skills are more important than marks. Marks are not everything. My parents want me to focus on developing my skills rather than marks” she said.
When asked about how important failures are, Neelakshi said, “Failures help you understand more about yourself. They help you understand where you stand. There’s nothing to be scared about failures.”
Talking about time management, a class 9 student from Guru Harkrishan Public School, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi, who did not wish to be named, said it is crucial when it comes to preparation for exams. He said that he allocates time based on how tough the subject is. “Social Science is difficult for me. I study four hours a day. When I study social sciences, I don’t study any other subject for that day,” he said.
“I do not worry about stress. I regularly play with my friends to keep stress levels in control,” he further said
When asked whether he has watched episodes of Modi’s Paricha Pe Charcha, he immediately nodded with a smile and said “yes!”. As soon as he said yes, his friends around him started making fun of him and he admitted that he didn’t know about Modi’s Paricha Pe Charcha with much embarrassment.
His friend, another Class X student from Sarvodaya Co-Education School, Munirka said, “Preparation for the board exams was stressful. But in between the preparation, I enjoyed it with my friends and used social media mindfully.”
“The exams that I have written so far have not been hard. One can pass them with minimal preparation. I studied by myself for three to four hours every day without going to any tuition classes,” he further added. CBSE had announced that over 44 lakh students would be appearing for the board exams across 7,842 centres in India and 26 locations abroad.
In what appeared to be a jolt for the student community, reports emerged alleging that there were paper leaks in the examination. On February 17, claims surfaced on the internet about the leak of the class 12 Physical Education exam via the messaging app Telegram in a video uploaded on YouTube by Zaki Saudagar.
The CBSE had issued a notice against the videos as “fake news” and stated that “such claims are baseless and intended to create unnecessary panic among students and parents”.
It assured all the stakeholders that strict measures have been implemented to ensure the fair and secure administration of the ongoing examination.
Published – February 21, 2025 09:21 pm IST