Kerala - Kochi   

Better SSLC results reduce distress calls by students

KOCHI: Thanks to the record high pass percentage at the SSLC examination, there has been a marked fall in the number of distress calls to helplines and suicidal attempts by students this year.

The pass percentage in the examination, whose results were announced on Tuesday, had come as a pleasant surprise to thousands of children who had expected to fail; and, those who had expected to score low found themselves in the big league. Naturally, this has had a positive impact on the students’ post-results behaviour.

Traditionally, the day of the result announcement is marked by several suicide attempts by those who have failed and those who failed to score high. A substantial number of students get depressed, agitated or anguished. Parents and relatives have a tough time keeping the children’s moods in control.

But, this time the situation is different. In the past two days, there has been only one reported case of suicide by an SSLC student in the State. This is down from the peak nine suicides on the day of the SSLC result announcement in 2003.

Helplines set up by the government and NGOs report that the distress calls they received were fewer than last year’s. Childline (phone: 1098) reported that though there had been a profusion of anxiety calls in the days leading up to the result announcement, the number fell dramatically once the results were announced. The number was significantly low compared with last year, Childline’s Fr. Antony said.

Maithri (phone: 2540530), the suicide prevention helpline, which is running the special SSLC result-related counselling service for the ninth year on end, found that the distress calls had ebbed after the results were announced. Rajesh R. Pillai, director, attributed this to the high pass percentage. He, however, noticed that there was a spike in the number of calls by parents. In the past, about 70 per cent of the distress calls were from the students, while the rest were from parents. This year, more than 50 per cent of the calls were from anguished parents.

The special helpline set up by the National Rural Health Mission, in partnership with the Education and Health departments, to offer counselling to SSLC and Plus Two children (mobile: 94956-75214, 38637), had a rush of calls pre-results, but after the announcement, the number dropped. Since this was the first time they were running the service, they could not say whether the overall number of calls had come down from the past year.

Interestingly, during the run-up to the result announcement, the calls had been mainly from those expecting high marks. They faced much more anxiety and stress than those who expected average marks.

This was because, one counsellor at a helpline said, they were anxious if they would be able to meet others’ expectations.

They had faced high pressure to perform from parents and teachers.

Some of the parents who had called the helplines wanted to know how to handle their children if they failed or scored low.

These parents showed a high level of awareness about the children’s state of mind before and after the results are out.

The realisation by NGOs and government agencies that teenagers need someone to share their tensions over examination results had led to the setting up of special helplines during the time of result publication.

It is estimated that all over India, nearly a half of the teenage suicides take place during March-July, which is the time when results of Class X and XII as well as of entrance tests are announced. Kerala has one of the highest suicide rates in the country.

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