Picture results day in an Indian home.
Academic pressure | Stress of board exams | Mental health | Exam anxiety
The portal refreshes. The marks are there. And in that moment—just for a second—a parent’s entire expression changes. The smile. The tone. The way they talk about their child.
If the marks are high: “Look at you! So proud of you.”
If they’re not: “You didn’t try hard enough. What were you doing the whole year?”
A number just decided how the kid feels about themselves for the next few weeks.
This happens in thousands of homes, on the same day, at the same time. And nobody really talks about what it actually does to a young person.
The invisible damage that leaves no bruises
Here’s what I’ve noticed, working with students for years now. The kids who are chasing marks—really chasing them, obsessed with them—they look fine on the surface. Good grades, teacher’s pets, “successful” by every visible measure.
But talk to them one-on-one, and something is off.
They are anxious because of academic pressure. Not just “a little nervous”—genuinely anxious. Before every test, before every exam, before even sitting down to study. Their stomach hurts. They can’t sleep. They wake up at 3 a.m. thinking about that one question they weren’t sure about.
They compare themselves constantly. Not just with the topper in class—with everyone. “She scored 2 marks more than me. Why? What did I miss? Am I stupid?” Their self-worth is tied directly to whether they are ahead or behind by a few percentage points.
They’ve forgotten how to learn for joy. A biology chapter that could be genuinely interesting? No, they only care about which parts will come in the exam. A math problem that’s actually cool? Nope, they skip it because it’s “not important for boards”.
And here’s the thing nobody wants to admit: many of them have started to hate studying itself.
Not because studying is hard. Because studying has become only about one thing—that number that decides their worth.
What a 16-year-old told me that broke my heart
I had a student once. Brilliant kid. 92% in 10th. Her parents were thrilled. She got into a top school for 11th.
But three months into 11th, she came to me with red eyes. She said, “I can’t do this anymore. I feel sick every morning before school. I’m tired of being scared.”
I asked her: “Scared of what? Academic pressure?”
She said: “Of not being good enough.”
Here’s the thing—she was good enough. By every measure, she was doing well. But the goalposts kept moving. 92% wasn’t enough because someone else got 94%. 94% wasn’t enough because she wanted 96%. 96% wasn’t enough because… well, the exam was different this year, so maybe she wouldn’t score as high?
The fear never ended. The “good enough” line kept shifting.
And she wasn’t even the extreme case. I’ve known kids who literally got physically ill before exams. Kids who developed eating disorders because stress made them unable to eat or made them overeat. Kids who had panic attacks in the examination hall. Kids whose anxiety was so bad they couldn’t even attempt the paper.
These aren’t “weak” kids or “sensitive” kids. These are ordinary teenagers in an extraordinary academic pressure cooker.
The side effects nobody talks about
When you make marks the only metric of success, something else dies. And it’s not obvious at first.
Creativity disappears. A 15-year-old who might’ve loved painting, or music, or writing—she stops. Why? Because marks don’t come from those things. Exams don’t test creativity. They test memory and pattern recognition. So those interests get labeled “hobbies” or “time-wasting,” and gradually, they fade because of academic pressure.
Risk-taking gets killed. Learning requires trying new things, making mistakes, failing sometimes, and learning from it. But in a marks-focused system, one wrong answer is… wrong. So kids stop trying anything they might fail at. They stick to what they know. They become safer, smaller versions of themselves.
Curiosity vanishes. There’s no room for genuine questions anymore. “But why does this happen?” “Can we explore this differently?” These questions slow you down. They eat into study time. So kids learn to suppress them. They memorize instead of understand. And school becomes about collecting answers, not discovering them. And this all because of academic pressure.
Relationships suffer. When you’re constantly comparing yourself to your friends, it’s hard to actually be their friend. You’re not happy for them; you’re threatened by them. The kid who scored higher isn’t a friend anymore—they’re competition. So friendships become surface-level, and many kids end up isolated, even when they’re surrounded by other people.
Mental health breaks. This is the one nobody wants to see, but it’s real. bBecause of academic pressure, anxiety, the depression, the sense of worthlessness—these aren’t exaggerations or “just stress.” Studies show that Indian students have alarmingly high rates of anxiety disorders directly tied to academic pressure.
And the worst part? Parents often don’t see it. Because the kid is doing well academically. So they don’t realize that inside, their child is drowning.
The lie we keep telling ourselves
“Marks are important for your future.”
True. Up to a point.
“You need good marks to get into a good college.”
Also true.
“If you don’t score well now, your life is ruined.”
This is where we lie. The reason is again the academic pressure.
Because here’s what actually happens: A kid with 75% and solid skills, who is curious and can think, often does better in college and career than a kid with 95% who only knows how to memorize and is terrified of failure because of academic pressure.
Colleges care about aptitude, not just marks. Companies care about whether you can actually do the job, not your 10th percentage. Life rewards people who can adapt, learn new things, work with others, and handle failure—none of which are measured by board exams.
But we’ve created an entire culture that says: “Your marks = your intelligence = your future = your worth.”
And it’s destroying kids.
What happens when a child internalizes this
So a student fails one exam. Not fails—maybe scores 65% when they were expecting 80%.
If marks are everything, here’s what that looks like inside their head:
- “I’m not smart.”
- “I’ll never get into a good college.”
- “My parents will be disappointed.”
- “Everyone else is better than me.”
- “I’m a failure.”
One exam. One score. And suddenly they’ve written an entire story about their worth and their future.
Some kids bounce back. But many don’t. They start seeing themselves as failures. And once you believe that about yourself, it becomes true. They stop trying because of academic pressure. They stop caring. Or worse—they try even harder, obsess even more, and the anxiety spirals.
I’ve seen bright 16-year-olds convince themselves they’re stupid. I’ve seen kids who could’ve pursued their passion—music, art, coding, sports—give it all up because boards came first. I’ve seen families broken because a score of 85% was treated like a tragedy.
The real cost of chasing only marks because of academic pressure
Years later, when these kids are adults, they realize something. The marks they obsessed over? Nobody asked for them. Not in job interviews (after the first one). Not in relationships. Not in life.
What they do remember is the anxiety. The lost years. The things they gave up. The dreams that felt too risky because they might affect their grades. The friendships that became competitive. The parents’ disappointment that hurt more than any failing grade.
And they think: “What was the point?”
Because the system that promised “good marks = good life” delivered only the marks. And no amount of marks could buy back the confidence, the joy in learning, the curiosity, or the peace of mind that got lost in the chase.
So what actually happens to kids when we only chase marks?
They learn to be afraid.
They learn that their worth depends on a number.
They learn to memorize instead of think.
They learn to compare instead of collaborate.
They learn that failing at something is the same as being a failure.
They learn to care more about what adults think of them than what they actually want.
And somewhere between 10th and 12th, many of them lose themselves because of academic pressure.
There’s another way (and it’s not even that radical)
What if marks mattered, but weren’t everything?
What if a school said: “Yes, we’ll help you score well. But we’ll also help you discover what you actually care about. We’ll give you flexibility to grow in different ways. We’ll celebrate your effort, not just your percentage.”
What if education was designed for actual humans, not for exam machines?
This is exactly what flexible learning pathways—like NIOS through open schooling—try to offer.
Instead of every student forced into the same mold, NIOS says: “You study at your pace. You pursue your interests. You prepare for exams seriously, but without sacrificing everything else in your life.”
IIL in Lucknow, as a registered NIOS center, works with students who are tired of the marks trap. They don’t just prep for exams; they help young people understand why they’re studying, not just what to memorize.
And SKOLA, their online platform, extends this to students everywhere—offering structured study support, but with breathing room for life to happen, for interests to develop, for a young person to actually grow as a human being, not just as a test-taking machine.
A different story
Imagine a 15-year-old who studies seriously for her boards, but also has time to pursue her coding interest. Or who trains for cricket without feeling guilty. Or who explores art without it being a “waste of time.”
She passes her exams—not always with the highest marks, but solidly. And she reaches 12th with her confidence intact, her curiosity alive, and her spirit unbroken.
When she steps into college, she’s not destroyed by competition because she never learned to see people as enemies. She’s not paralyzed by failure because she’s made mistakes and survived them. She’s not lost because she actually knows what she’s interested in.
That’s the difference between a system that only chases marks and one that uses marks as a tool, not a verdict.
Kids deserve both: education that prepares them for exams and education that prepares them for life.
Right now, most are getting only the first one.
And they’re breaking.
If your child is anxious because of academic pressure, obsessed with marks, or has lost joy in learning—it’s not a personal failure. It’s a system failure. There are alternatives that take both their future and their peace of mind seriously. NIOS, through centers like IIL Lucknow and the SKOLA platform, offers a path where marks matter, but your child’s wellbeing matters more.
