Suicide helplines jammed with examination queries

Students are calling up and asking, ‘Can you please tell me what sort of questions will appear in the exams?’

They have not flunked the exams. In fact, they have not even taken the tests. Yet, students in droves are calling up suicide helplines.

Anxiety levels among Mumbai’s board examinees have shot up so much that these helplines are jammed with teenagers calling up, posing queries on anything and everything — from what kind of questions are likely to appear to what happens to “borderline” students if the syllabus changes next year.

None of these callers has suicidal tendencies; they are just teenagers seeking support to cruise through board exams. Last month, a 15-year-old girl, who will be appearing for her SSC examinations in March, dialled 27546669.

She got connected to Aasra, a Navi-Mumbai based suicide helpline. The girl had just one query for the volunteer who answered her call. “Hello, can you please tell me what sort of questions will appear in the exams?” No doubt she had called up the wrong person, but she got a patient hearing. 

“We are not coaching centres and can’t reply to such queries. But when the caller sounds distressed, it is our job to listen. We work on their feelings and emotions, trying to make them less obsessed with exams,” said Johnson Thomson, director of Aasra. 

But he admitted the job was tricky and difficult as most callers were resistant to such an approach. “They do not like strangers entering their private space,” he added.

Psychologist Varkha Chulani blamed exacting parents for putting their children on edge. “If parents can make their children realise that exams are just one aspect of life, then boards as a phenomenon becomes less distressing,” she said.

But every year, a new set of fears gnaw at the guts of 15- and 17-year-olds. Take for instance this call made by a Std XII boy to Aasra this month. “The boy introduced himself as not belonging to the meritorious category. His stress levels had nothing to do with his forthcoming exams.

He was worried that in the event of the current syllabus undergoing a change next year, he might never be able to study and clear the newly-framed syllabus,” said Johnson. But why students are turning to suicide helplines for support when they have no intention of
committing suicide?

“It may be because the word ‘suicide’ is lost in the small print. People seem to register the word helpline. We receive calls from people seeking general information,” said Johnson.