Terming many Intermediate students ending their lives over poor results as unfortunate, Education Minister Adimulapu Suresh on Sunday said that low scores or failure in an examination could never mean the end of the world.

Low percentage of marks, in fact, can be the launching pad for a promising career if one sincerely and diligently works for the set target, he said.

‘Confidence matters’

“The students must not lose their confidence. They should rather introspect and find what went wrong. Scoring in examination and knowledge are two different things,” he emphasised.

The Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) released the intermediate first and second year results on Friday. In the wake of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown and other guidelines such as social distancing, the results were released online.

Server issues

While the Minister and the department officials released the results at 4 p.m. most students could get access to the websites with the results only after a couple of hours due to what officials called “heavy pressure on the servers”.

Though many students resorted to the extreme step on Saturday, they were surfaced only on Sunday morning. “Teens taking their lives over lower percentage of marks or failure in examination is a disturbing trend,” said the Minister.

“Parents have a key role to play. They should counsel their children to deal with the stress and depression. They should support their childrens’ aspirations and encourage them in all possible ways to face the challenges in life,” said Mr. Suresh.

The Minister also underscored the need for educational institutions to do their bit in counselling children against harbouring negative thoughts and encourage them to chase their dreams with hard work and commitment.

Education reforms

“There is no need to give undue importance to marks and grades that is so typical of the corporate education system. This is why the government is focussing on reforms . We are determined to end the corporate culture and help children gain knowledge in a very conducive atmosphere. The reforms introduced in both, school and higher education sectors, aims at changing the face of the education scenario,” said the Minister.