Are Indian Students Really Free? The Hidden Pressures of School Life

Are Indian students truly free? A witty look at rote learning, marks, tuition, exams, comparisons and the pressures shaping school life in India.

By Ambika Morajkar
Every August 15, students wave flags, sing patriotic songs and celebrate freedom.

Then August 16 arrives.

The school bag returns. The timetable attacks. The tuition teacher calls.

So, how free are students really?

Free from rote learning?
Students memorise entire chapters, vomit them onto answer sheets and forget them by lunchtime. Education calls this “learning.”
Free from the marks race?
Score 95 and someone asks where the other five marks went. Apparently, happiness begins only at 100.
Free from tuition?
School ends, tuition begins. Tuition ends, homework begins. Childhood is available only on public holidays, subject to cancellation.
Free from comparisons?
Every family has a legendary cousin who scores 99 per cent, plays three instruments and probably solves equations while sleeping.
Free from pressure?
Adults say, “Marks do not define you.” Then they ask for the marksheet before asking how you are.
Free from unfair exams?
Students study for months while leaked papers travel faster than the syllabus. Honest children are expected to compete in a race where someone has already seen the finish line.
Free to think?
Schools praise creativity—until a student writes an answer that is not exactly like the textbook.
Free to fail?
Failure is called a learning experience in speeches. On result day, it is treated like a national emergency.
Free to choose a career?
Children may dream freely, provided the dream is medicine, engineering or something the relatives can proudly announce at weddings.

India won freedom from foreign rule.

Its students are still fighting rote learning, paper leaks, comparison, pressure and a system that often values percentages more than people.

We proudly call them the future of the nation.

Perhaps we should first stop exhausting them in the present.